The Sixth Path of Destiny
by Amela333
Summary: Sequel to 'The Fourth Hunter'. An unlikely path of destiny has been set into motion, and the four hunters still have a mission to complete. A twist on the series. Contains spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I am not Darren Shan. I don't own his books or characters. Wow.

**Author's Note: **Well, hello again! If you're a returning reader from _The Fourth Hunter_, thanks for sticking with this! :D See, I might not be fast, but I keep my promises - this is the sequel to _The Fourth Hunter_! Being a sequel, unless you read that, this probably won't make much sense.

If you want a refresher (since it's been a while), there's a little recap thing at the end of _The Fourth Hunter. _Chances are, there'll be spoilers throughout, so if you haven't finished the original series, I'd do that first too.

Anyway...now that that's all out of the way, here we go!

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**-The Sixth Path of Destiny-**

After Evanna had gone, nearly half an hour passed before anything was said. Mr. Crepsley's face had been buried in his hands since, and Arra had been equally still and silent. Harkat and I kept occasionally meeting each other's glances, but, like the others, had nothing to say and would immediately shake our heads and stare off into space. It was Vancha, stretched out on the floor and absently tossing his throwing stars into the air, who first broke the silence.

"The question is, what next?"

Arra gave a bitter laugh and picked up the stick Evanna had been using as a physical metaphor for destiny and started plucking twigs off it. Something about watching her rip twigs off a branch that had demonstrated our destiny made me uncomfortable, but I didn't dare say anything. "I'm not sure I know the answer to 'what now', let alone 'what next'," she said. "I don't want to be part of destiny like this. Vampires fight. They _don't_ -," she gave a disgusted cough, "have children and make peace."

I looked at Mr. Crepsley, expecting him to say something to comfort her, but even he seemed speechless. I slid my gaze to Harkat, who looked as hopeless as I felt. Finally, with nothing uplifting to say, I settled on, "But you heard Evanna, there's no going back," which I realized after the fact probably wasn't going to make her feel any better.

"No, I suppose there's not," she admitted coolly.

"If you could, would you?" Vancha asked.

She looked at him incredulously. "Didn't you hear anything I just said?"

"Yes," he said. "But tell me flat out: IF you could go back, and IF you could make this never happen, would you."

She stared at him, her brow furrowed, and didn't answer. Instead, she turned to Mr. Crepsley, who had at some point unseen to me uncovered his face. His skin was pale, and his expression drawn. His scar stood out against his paleness, making him look almost scary. "What's wrong?" she asked, frowning, because he suddenly looked quite off. But he shook his head, looking away with his eyes narrowed. "You don't look right."

"I am tired," he said shortly.

"It has been a very long night," Vancha nodded. "We will all think more clearly once we are well rested. I say we take Evanna's advice and sleep."

"Sleep?" Arra almost laughed.

Vancha grimaced, "Eventually, we will all have to accept destiny and move on." He sighed, then tried to smile encouragingly. "Try to think of yourself as a pioneer - a first among the likes of vampiresses." This didn't seem to improve her mood, because she threw the destiny stick at him and caught the left side of his face, leaving a nasty scratch. He grinned and quickly healed it with his spit. Folding her arms across her chest, Arra glanced over at Mr. Crepsley, who was staring at his feet, hands clamping then opening again nervously.

"Really," Arra said, frowning at him. "What's the matter?"

He looked up at her, and even with his face hidden in the shadows, something seemed wrong. "Nothing," he said curtly. "I told you, I am tired."

I had never heard Mr. Crepsley use a tone like that with Arra. Something was wrong with him tonight. Arra stared at him for a second, lips pursed, then raised her eyebrows and looked away. Vancha shifted uncomfortably, sensing the sudden, inexplicable tension. He looked around as if hoping an idea would come to him, and when it did, his expression fell grim once again."It would be easy for Desmond Tiny to track us down while we are at his daughter's residence," he said. "I believe it's already light out, and neither of you," he pointed to the other vampires, "share my desire for a bit of sunny travel, and so I believe we should get out of here as soon as the sun sets."

We nodded in agreement. "This place creeps...me out anyway," Harkat said. "And I don't know...if I trust Evanna."

"I believe we should," Mr. Crepsley told him, his voice strained. "Evanna is certainly...eccentric, but she would not have told us any of this had she not wanted to help us. She is disobeying Des Tiny and risking his wrath to help mediate peace; I do not believe she would sell us out or lie."

"She wouldn't lie, but she's been known to leave out portions of the truth," Vancha said gruffly. "She admitted it herself - there's more she isn't telling us. I think we should figure out what that is, and we won't get to the bottom of anything sitting around her cave. We should do what she and her bloody fate-meddling father instruct and go where the wind takes us."

"And where's that?" Arra asked.

We all fell silent, and I tried to tune in with my inner self to figure out where I wanted to go. Something came to me, and I looked up at my fellow hunters. No one seemed about to jump in with suggestions, and so I announced, "I want to go back to where it all started...for me at least."

"And where is that?" Vancha asked, but Mr. Crepsley looked up with something of a smile on his face.

Before the words came out of my mouth, I was already looking forward to reuniting with my old friends. "To the Cirque du Freak."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

I don't think anyone really slept that day. We each retired to one of the many comfortable sofas (which seemed to have multiplied into enough for all of us by the time we got to them), lay down, and were silent, all too exhausted to talk about destiny and the future anymore. Occasionally throughout the day, I would hear or see someone sit up, yawn, and stare off into the darkness of the cave. Apart from that, we were still until an approaching noisy croaking caught our attention.

Everyone slowly lifted themselves off the sofas to see the large red and yellow lump on the floor that had seemed to be trying to communicate with us. The toad hopped in a wide, awkward circle, as if trying to give each of us a stare.

"What d'you think it wants?" I asked sleepily.

Before Vancha, who had opened his mouth, could answer, the frog gave a couple more ribbets, then leapt from the room. "Evanna must be on her way," Vancha said as the slimy red leg disappeared around the corner. He stood and cracked his neck loudly.

No sooner had he said it than we heard the footsteps out in the cave's front room. A weary-looking Arra ran her fingers anxiously through her hair and yawned. Mr. Crepsley, sitting behind her, still had that strange look in his eyes - they were no longer an emerald green, but had turned to the color of a dirty lake. I couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with him.

Harkat tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the doorway. I followed his gaze and saw an army of frogs hopping in, each making squishing noises as their wet feet lifted off the ground. Several yards behind them, as Vancha had predicted, was Evanna. She looked the same as she had the night before (part of me was surprised, as if I had expected her to change her appearance daily), hairy as the wolfman and wrapped in dirty, yellowing ropes.

"Good evening to you all," she said with a smile.

Vancha and Harkat each muttered a greeting, but other than them, the room was silent. Even the toads had stopped ribbeting and squelching around. Her entrance seemed to bring back some of the tension from yesterday. "I take it no one got a good day's rest," she commented, sitting down and beginning to pull at a fraying end of one of her ropes.

"What tipped you off?" Arra said sarcastically.

Evanna smiled. "I don't need to be tipped off. I know. And, I know you've reached a decision as to your next move, yes?"

"The Cirque du Freak," I said unnecessarily.

She nodded, and it had an encouragingly approving air to it. "As good a choice as any. When do you plan to leave?"

"Tonight," Vancha said, poking a toad with his big toe then pulling quickly away as it snapped its tongue at him. "Larten will be able to locate them quickly, so depending on where the Cirque is, it will hopefully not be long before we meet up with them."

When Evanna considered him for a second, Arra piped in. "Will it? Be long, I mean? That is..." she frowned suddenly, "we can still flit, can't we? I can flit?"

"I'm not here to tell you what you can and can't do," Evanna said. "That's not the way destiny works. You're on a particular path of destiny, and whatever happens from there is your decision. Do not forget that your ultimate goal is the same as before - kill the Lord of the Vampaneze. There's just a small," she smiled as she tried to think of the right word, "twist. You're building the future, you make the decisions."

"That's not what I meant," Arra said.

"I know exactly what you meant," Evanna said. "And I answered your question. It's your decision."

"Since when?" Arra said, and I braced myself for a blow-out. "Last night it wasn't."

Evanna didn't look phased by Arra's raising voice tonight. "I, like Desmond Tiny, can influence destiny to a certain extent," she said calmly, "but we cannot control it. Only the players can."

"But you said that you were the one who made this whole thing happen!"

"No," Evanna corrected her. "It was one of the possible outcomes of destiny already. I merely helped it along and informed you of it. You would have figured it out own your own eventually, but as a proponent for peace between vampires and vampaneze, I thought it couldn't hurt for you to all know your specific parts in destiny. Don't make me regret my decision, Arra Sails."

Arra didn't look satisfied, but folded her arms and leaned back, exhaling as though working very hard to keep her temper.

"Now," Evanna said before we could bother her with any more questions. She clapped her hands together once and smiled. "If it's all the same to you, I'd think it best to leave sooner rather than later, and usually I think correctly."

"I already said we were planning to leave tonight," Vancha reminded her.

"I know," Evanna nodded, "but the sooner you leave tonight, the better."

"Are you trying to get rid of us, Lady?" he asked, pretending to be insulted.

She grinned. "I can never get rid of you fast enough, Sire," she chided him. "The faster you leave, the faster you can return to your mission of defeating the Lord of the Vampaneze. But like it or not," she gave a glance in Arra's direction, "it may not be long until our paths cross again." She gave a playful smile and added,"And you never know when a pretty young lady who smells just a little bit like a bog might be me checking up on you."

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All righty, there you have it, chapter one of part II. I hope you liked it! You know how much I love reviews, so please let me know what you thought :) Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **See chapter one

**A/N: **I really love updating this story, I'm quite excited about its future :D Unfortunately, my prison sentence...whoops, sorry, I mean, school...has started again, which means that updates might be slightly few(er) and far(ther) between. But hopefully not! Now that I'm done with all the contests, I'm going to try to wrap some other things up, then this will be my primary writing focus!

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An hour later, after a quick re-stocking on necessary supplies like water, a small meal, and good-byes (no matter how half-hearted) to Evanna, we left the cave. I couldn't help but feel like the whole thing had been a bit of a waste of time. Evanna had given us plenty of information, but for every answer we had gotten there were three more questions risen. As we traveled away from the cave, there was a certain tension in the air that hadn't been there before; I wondered if we all would have been happier and better off figuring things out ourselves. We had spent so long trying to get to Evanna's, and here we were, less than twenty-four hours later, leaving again, back on the road.

But I couldn't be entirely unhappy. The thought of going back to see Evra was exciting. I missed my friend, the first friend I had made as a half-vampire, and wanted to know how he was doing. I assumed he, and the Cirque on a whole, had changed in the past couple years; I certainly had.

Little was said as we began our traveling. Mr. Crepsley located Mr. Tall, and unfortunately the Cirque was farther away than we had hoped. No one had raised the question of flitting again, and so it was an unspoken understanding that we would walk, at least for now, no matter how long it would take us. Vancha estimated it would take a little over two months, which I wasn't thrilled about.

"Well," I said, stretching out on a familiar log hours after our departure from Evanna's – the log was familiar because we had stayed in the exact same spot the night prior to getting to Evanna's. "Here we are again."

Vancha sighed and pulled a piece of raw meat off a bone he had found a couple hours ago (the rest of us hadn't dared touch it). He examined it, popped it in his mouth, and said, "It's the nature of an adventure, spend all your time travelling somewhere only to find out that it's not the somewhere you have to go."

"Did you purposefully wait until your mouth was full to speak?" Mr. Crepsley asked disdainfully, and Vancha gave him an antagonizing grin. Mr. Crepsley's mood hadn't improved since leaving Evanna's. He was grumpier than usual and barely spoke to anyone. Part of him seemed far off in thought, another part seemed somewhere between miserable and angry, and another part, I just couldn't quite put my finger on. I'd picked up on his odd behavior immediately and was choosing to leave him alone, as were Arra and Harkat; Vancha, on the other hand, either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Oh, lighten up," Vancha said. "There's no point in us all being miserable. Why? What's so bad about being on the road anyway? It's not like we have much of a choice; the next few months, years, maybe decades, hold a endless pattern of traveling, hunting, and killing. Out of the three, traveling isn't so bad."

To my surprise, it was Arra who chimed in and agreed with him. "He's right," she said. "The journey isn't what we should be complaining about. That's the easy part. Eventually, we have to find and kill the Lord of the Vampaneze and solve another hundred mysteries in the meantime."

"Exactly," Vancha nodded. "And we have all the time in the world to worry about that; we've been back on the road for a matter of hours, let's not get off on the wrong foot." He looked at Mr. Crepsley as though waiting for him to agree, but when my mentor only turned away, sneering, Vancha sighed and continued on. "Now, I say we plan out a route of travel. I've always flitted to that part of that world, but since we might be using..." he was choosing his words delicately at the sight of Arra's scowl, "alternate methods, I think there are better ways."

"If it's going to take so long," I said, finally feeling like I had something to offer in making our plans, "why don't we take a train, or a plane or something?"

Vancha looked at me warily for a second, then spat on the ground disgustedly. "Vampires do not use human methods of travel," he snorted. "We have better, less infested ways to get where we want to go."

"Yes," I said pointedly, "but we aren't flitting, we're walking, and you said that's going to take forever. If we could get on a plane, it could take only a few days to catch up to the Cirque du Freak."

"A couple months in hardly 'forever'," he said with a sniff.

"Well," I said, folding my arms - walking endlessly for months was not something I was going to agree to without a struggle, "maybe you want to go the long way, but I don't. If it's so important for you to walk, you can walk, and I'll take other, faster ways. What do you think, Harkat? Will you come with me?"

The Little Person looked uncomfortable at being dragged into our disagreement. "Well..." he said, looking from me to Vancha uneasily. "I am not a vampire...and don't feel the need to...follow their ways. I will go...where Darren goes."

I beamed at him, then turned to Arra. She sighed. "I would be the first to say that we are not humans and shouldn't act like them," she said, and I groaned, beginning to turn away. "But," she added, and I turned back, "we're all anxious to find answers and equally looking forward to being able to stop somewhere for longer than a night. So, I'll come with you and Harkat." She turned to Mr. Crepsley, her eyes wide and questioning. "You'll come with us?" she asked, and predictably, he nodded, scratching wearily at his scar. I could have kissed her.

Arra, Mr. Crepsley, Harkat, and I turned to look at Vancha , whose lips were pursed in a tight, thin line. "Charna's guts," he snapped. "All right, you win, Shan." He clapped me on the back. "I'm not traveling by myself. But have it be known, I will _not _get in an airplane. I refuse to fly."

"As do I," Mr. Crepsley agreed.

"No problem," I told them, smiling. "If we have to get across water, we'll take a boat." An image of a sprawling cruise ship - the kind you see on TV, with huge swimming pools, and rock walls, and beautiful halls - flashed through my mind. I started to feel almost - almost - a little bit excited.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Three days later, we found ourselves at the edges of a rural town in the middle of a forest. And in the middle meant that it was literally totally encompassed by trees. From a quick once-over Arra gave it, she found that it contained a whopping total of five different things: a general store with a lone, decrepit gasoline pump, farms, farmers, cows, and, to our luck, a train station. Other than that, it was dirt roads around the town and two stone streets leading out into the woods. I could have sworn I'd seen this town in a horror movie of some sort when I was a kid. Being a vampire, it didn't bother me that much.

"Here's our problem," I said, resting under the shelter of a tall oak tree. "We're a bit of a..." I glanced from each of my fellow hunters to the other, "conspicuous group. And I don't think they see many people looking like us around here, so we might draw some unnecessary attention to ourselves if we just walk into the train station together and ask for tickets."

My eyes fell on Vancha, with his green hair and purple animal-hide clothes (if you could call them that). Then Harkat, the stitched-together grey being that could pass as Frankenstein's less attractive little brother. Mr. Crepsley, Arra, and I were unusually muscled, pale and scarred, but with a decent amount of layers (which wouldn't stand out in the cold weather) we could pass just fine as humans. The other two, now that was another story.

"Harkat," I said, smiling weakly at my friend, "if we could just put you in some winter clothes, you could pass as a stocky little kid. Vancha..." I looked at the Prince, who was digging his fingernail inside his ear with a look of determination on his face, and sighed. "I think you're going to need a little work."

He sniffed. "And what in the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked huffily.

"Like, for instance, your hair," I said, pointing up at it. "Humans don't usually have hair quite that color. Not all of it, anyway. So you'll need a hat. And your clothes are a bit on the unconventional side as far as humans go."

Vancha looked down at himself sheepishly.

"Actually," Harkat added hesitantly. "Since we're on that...subject, you might want to consider...taking a shower."

"A long one," Arra agreed, crinkling her nose. "With soap, not dirt or rocks."

"And actually, your eyebrows have grown down into your eyes. You should trim them," I told him.

"Oh!" Arra said excitedly, "And you..."

"Well!" Vancha interrupted loudly, cutting her off. "How nice, we've all found an activity to pass the time: Vancha-bashing."

I grinned, knowing his feeling weren't really hurt.

"I didn't want to get on the bloody train in the first place," he snapped. "I _will not_ conform to human dress."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Ten minutes later, I had been sent to find a train schedule and had struck a deal with Vancha in the mean time - I promised that I would find him something as hideously similar to his preferred attire as possible at the local general store, and if everyone else agreed that it suited him he would have to wear it. I didn't know what the store would have that would fit him, or even if they would sell clothes, though, I figured that, as they were the only store in town, it would make sense. Whatever the case, I was willing to give it a shot; there was no way he could walk onto a train unnoticed in his usual getup.

When I stopped by the train station, the attendant was sleeping behind the desk. I didn't bother to wake her up. I was used to train stations having some sort of automatic sign that cycled through the different departure and arrival times for the different expresses, but no such thing in this small station. Instead, a dry-erase board had hand-written times on it and there was a pad of paper and a pen next to it for marking down times.

I quickly scribbled down every departure time for tonight and left, not wanting the clerk to awaken and strike up a conversation. Tucking the paper into my back pocket, I headed for the store, hoping it would still be open.

Luckily, when I got to the front door all the lights were still on and a man with a nasty comb-over was behind a small desk ringing up a case of sodas for a couple teenagers. I slipped in the door, hoping to draw little attention to myself. The string of bells dangling off the doorknob didn't help. I gave a casual smile as the heads turned to look at me and headed for the back of the store.

"Can I help you?" the man with the comb-over asked, and, hearing another jingle of the bells, I realized I was the only customer in the store. So much for being inconspicuous.

"Um, yeah, please," I said slowly, turning back to face him. "Do you sell clothes?"

He nodded, then motioned for me to follow him. "New in town?" he asked as he wove us through racks stuffed with canned and packaged foods.

"No," I said. "Just stopping through."

"Yeah? You been through here before? You look familiar."

"No," I shook my head. "Never."

"Hm." He stared at me for a minute, studying my face. I shifted uncomfortably on my feet under his gaze until he realized he was making me uneasy and shrugged. "Never mind, then," he said. "I'm usually good with faces. So, where you headed?"

"We're going...um..." I paused, realizing I had no idea where the Cirque was, or even what town or country we were in. "We're just sort of going wherever the wind takes us." I smiled to myself, satisfied with my honesty.

"Ah," he said. "You staying it town?" This man sure asked a lot of questions.

"No," I said. "We're taking the next train out tonight. I just came into find a new set of clothes for my little brother and my parents' friend." That's what we had decided on - Harkat, bundled up, was playing my brother while we were out in public, and Vancha was going to be an old family friend. Mr. Crepsley and Arra dressed normally enough to pass as humans, and so I didn't need to bother finding anything for them.

"Oh," he said quizzically. "They didn't bring any?" He was starting to annoy me now.

"They lost them," I said.

He nodded, maybe catching my short tone, and pointed to a couple racks. "Your little brother could find stuff here. As for the friend, over on the smaller rack. Mind you there's not much to chose from for adult sizes. Mostly only pajamas left." He shrugged one shoulder. "I'll be behind the counter if you need anything."

"Thanks," I smiled, glad to see the back of him.

Finding clothes for Harkat wasn't hard. I grabbed him a bulky sweatshirt and a wide pair of jeans. I also snatched a ski mask out of a bin full of them - he couldn't be without his breathing mask for too long, and it would be best to cover it to avoid any questions. Vancha was a different story. I found a hat he could cover his strange hair with, but clothes would be difficult. On top of finding something he wouldn't object to, I had to find something that would fit, and that was going to be something huge. There were a couple t-shirts that looked like they would fit, but one had writing all over it and the other two were bright orange, definitely not a Vancha color. Finding bottoms was even more of a dead end. The only pants left were basic black suit pants, and Vancha wouldn't step into those if his life depended on it.

I went to the other side of the rack to look at the pajamas, already accepting the fact that I probably wouldn't find anything. I shuffled through the various flannel checkered pants and undershirts, sighing dismally.

And then I saw it, and my face split into a mile-wide smile. It may as well have had a halo floating above its hanger. Snatching it off the rack, I ran to the front desk, where the man was sitting behind a computer, his eyes darting back and forth between the screen and a newspaper in his hand. I cleared my throat and he gave a start, looking up. "Sorry," he coughed, looking down at the items in my hand. "This it, then?" he asked quickly.

I nodded and held the clothes up for him to ring in.

"Right, right," he said, throwing the money into a register and giving me more change than I was do. "Well, have a nice trip, Darren."

"Thanks," I said, and without another word left the store, trying to shake the feeling the he had been looking at me strangely. Or maybe I was becoming a little too paranoid for my own good. I glanced behind me and saw him still watching me through the window. I hurried back to the street. With one more look back, I could no longer see him, but I noticed a clock in front of the store telling me it was quarter till nine. I reached into my pocket and checked the train times. Nine-thirty was next, and if we rushed we could still make it. It was imperative that we left as early in the night as possible - we couldn't still be on the train when daylight broke. With a final look back at the store, I sighed and began to jog through the town. There was no time to dwell on his odd behavior, and by the time I'd made it back to our camp, it had completely slipped my mind.

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So...you know the drill :D Please leave a review, they make my day! Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **See chapter one

**A/N: **Well...I don't really have a lot to say about this chapter. You could call it somewhat of a transition chapter, but there's a lot packed in here. So, I'll just say thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed so far (thank you!), and off you go!

* * *

When I returned to our camp with the bag of clothes, Harkat looked absolutely gleeful to find what I had come up with. Vancha didn't look thrilled at the idea of handing over his purple animal hides, but everyone else looked at least slightly excited - or relieved - to see them go.

"Now," I said, pulling the bag away as he reached grudgingly for it, "before I show it to you, remember our agreement?" I could barely keep the grin off my face. "This is the closest thing I could find to what you have."

Vancha grunted, reaching his hands out. My face split into a smile as I drew out first Harkat's clothes, then his ski mask, and handed them to the Little Person. "Ready?" I said to Vancha. "Here." I lifted the pajamas out of the bag and thrust them into his hands, nearly shaking with laughter.

With a look of utmost disgust on his face, Vancha slowly held up the fuzzy, purple, footed one-piece pajamas. Harkat and I lost it at once, collapsing to the ground as the Prince held it up to his body, his face turning a deep red. Even Arra was laughing into her fist, and though Mr. Crepsley still wore the far-away, unhappy expression he'd had since leaving Evanna's, I swore I saw a corner of his mouth twitch.

"It's purple," I choked out between my laughs, "it's fuzzy, and it was the only thing they had that'll fit you. It's not any different than your animal hides. It's just made out of...polyester or something."

I expected him to argue, refuse to wear it, but he only stared, his eyebrows raised. Finally, he gave a grunt and said, "Fine." Then he stepped behind thicker trees to get changed.

I turned to Harkat, grinning. "You know," I said, "I think he likes them. He just won't admit it."

The Little Person laughed and we eagerly waited for Vancha to reappear. He did several minutes later, his face flushed redder than usual, but hardly looking unhappy. It was the funniest looking thing I'd ever seen. Vancha, the giant, tough, vampire Prince, in a fuzzy purple onesie. "It works on you," I told him, as Arra bit her thumb nail, her shoulders shaking as she tried not to laugh.

"Thank you," he said stiffly, stuffing his hides into one of our few small bags. "Now, did you get the train schedule? I want to get on and off so I can get rid of this bloody thing."

"Sure you do," I said sarcastically, winking. "But yes, I did. The next train leaves soon, so if we want to catch it, we have to leave now."

Several minutes later, Harkat was bundled up to resemble a large child, I had reminded Vancha to button the flap in the back of his new pajamas, our belongings were packed, and we were on our way to the train station. Night had only just fallen and already the town seemed entirely dead. The lights were off in all the houses and even the store I had passed earlier. Only the train station still had a light on.

Rather than all go inside (Vancha, while looking more human in his pajamas and hat, was still a strange sight), Mr. Crepsley and I went in together. The minute we walked through the door we could sense there was something odd going on. The attendant I had seen earlier was gone, and in her place sat a large man in a bulky jacket, and standing by the door where we had come in were two similarly dressed men. The man behind the desk looked at me for a second, then shifted his gaze to Mr. Crepsley, who was already digging inside his pocket for money.

"Tickets?" the man asked as we came up to the desk.

"Yes, please," I said hesitantly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man near the door tap his fingers nervously on his hip. "Five."

"Destination?" he asked.

I told him we were taking the train as far east as it went, which would bring us into a large city where I secretly hoped we could pick up another train, or a bus or boat. The man behind the desk jotted down our destination, punched something into a calculator, then gave us our total fare. We passed him the money, and he handed us our tickets. "Brian and Sean are getting on the train too," he told us, nodding to the men by the door. "Follow them."

As Mr. Crepsley and I turned towards the door, we briefly exchanged worried glances. It would be impossible for us to communicate with Brian and Sean with us, but I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was: why were these two men coming with us, and should we ditch the train? It seemed much too much of a coincidence that they'd be on the same trip as us. It was only then that I remembered the man at the store, acting so strangely with me. I wished that I had remembered to tell Mr. Crepsley - it was too late now.

Brian held the door open for us, stoic-faced as he waved us through. Vancha, Arra, and Harkat were waiting outside, all looking a little surprised as the two men followed us out. Glancing back, I saw them each raise their eyebrows as they looked at Vancha's pajamas, and Sean's eyes flickered towards Harkat, who turned his face to the side to try to conceal any revealed grey skin. Neither man smiled.

Sean led the way around the back of the station, where the tracks were. I glanced at a clock set up on a lamppost; the train would be here any minute now. Part of me wanted to sit, but some paranoid instinct in me told me to remain on my feet while Sean and Brian were around. I could tell I wasn't the only one who felt there was something strange going on. I tried to edge close enough to Mr. Crepsley to whisper something to him without being overheard, but Brian seemed determined to stand only inches away from me. I sighed and folded my arms, hoping that this was all some strange coincidence, and that these two men had a real reason to be getting on this train other than us.

Arra was the first to try to figure out what was going on. "Hello," she said to the two men.

"Hi," they replied simply, hands in their pockets.

"Where are you headed?" she asked, taking a side-step towards them. I saw them both tense.

"To the end of the line," Sean said, scratching at his short, dark beard and edging away from her. "All the way."

In other words, I thought, my heart skipping a couple beats, they were following us.

"Mm," Arra nodded, looking them over. "Police business?"

"What?" Sean looked taken aback.

"Your badge," she said, gesturing to Sean's belt, where a police badge was clipped. Not far away from the badge was a holster with a gun. So these were police officers. I pieced together that the man in the station, who had replaced the attendant, was as well. So they were sending the police with us. Why? Had someone seen us going to the train station and thought we looked suspicious? No, that wouldn't make sense, the police wouldn't have had time to get there before us. In my head, I ran frantically through everything I had said to the man in the general store - he was the only person I had spoken to who could have possibly alerted the police of us. I couldn't understand why. I hadn't said anything suspicious. My story to him was believable. So why were they here now, and why would they be following us on the train? Even if they thought we were up to no good, once we left their town, why would they care enough to follow us? We hadn't done anything illegal or suspicious.

When Sean didn't answer Arra, Brian jumped in. "Yeah," he said, pulling his jacket down over his belt to hide his own weapon. "Official business. Can't really talk about it."

"I see," she nodded. She stepped away from them, back towards Mr. Crepsley. She'd found out all she'd meant to. And now they knew we were just a little bit on to them.

I heard the engine roaring towards the station before I could see the actual train. From tracks leading out of the thick woods surrounding the town it emerged, screeching as it slowed to a stop in front of us. When the doors slid open, no one made a motion to be the first ones on. We were waiting for Brian and Sean to make the first move so we could be sure to sit somewhere away from them. They, apparently, were hoping we'd go first so they could tail us inside.

Finally, when the train's whistle blew, signaling that it would be leaving soon, we had no choice but to lead the way aboard. Sure as anything, Sean and Brian followed. The first car's compartments were full, and so, stepping carefully as the train began to crawl to a start, I led the way farther back into the train. The next couple cars had a few people, but the next one was completely empty. I slid open the compartment's door and sat down on the first seat, my eyes following Sean and Brian as they made their way to the other side. Maybe they thought sitting next to us would be too much of a giveaway, as if we hadn't already caught on. Harkat sat next to me, and Mr. Crepsley, Arra, and Vancha across from us. We looked from each other to Sean and Brian, each wondering when it would be safe to talk. At the other side of the compartment, the police kept inconspicuously glancing over at us while they carried out a very weak attempt at a ploy conversation.

The train ride would take all night, ending its journey just long enough before sunrise to get off the train and find shelter from the sun. Even with the inexplicable company of these two men, there was no point in spending the entire time tense and stressed. After all, there were only two of them. If anything happened, there was no question who would win.

Vancha was the first to figure this out. Standing up about twenty minutes into our trip, he went to an empty bench, lay down with his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. Watching Vancha fall asleep in his purple one-piece pajamas made me wish vampires could come out clearly in photographs.

Not long after, Harkat drifted off as well. Mr. Crepsley, Arra, and I sat in silence for a while, meeting each other's eyes every now and then, but usually keeping our gazes on Sean and Brian. Both officers had remained impossibly awake and alert, neither's eyelids beginning to fall heavily, and neither with a wavering surveillance on us.

Over an hour into our trip, I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I emerged, I found Brian standing just down the hall. At first I assumed he was waiting to use it, but when I started back for our car, he followed right after me. I contemplated saying something, but I realized it would do no good. He certainly wasn't going to reveal their reasons for dogging us. It was best not to let on how suspicious we were.

After I returned to our compartment, hours passed. Though she seemed determined to stay awake, Arra soon joined Harkat and Vancha is the world of sleep, her head resting on Mr. Crepsley's shoulder as she slept. There were a few stops along the way, and after the third, the conductor announced that ours would be the next. I glanced at a clock - it was barely after two in the morning, and our train wasn't set to arrive till five-thirty. We still had a while to go.

An hour after that, Mr. Crepsley stood. Without so much as a look in my direction, he shifted Arra so she was leaning against the dark window, got to his feet and approached the two police officers. Both stiffened as he neared them, and I raised my eyebrows interestedly. I wondered if he was going to confront them and demand they tell us what's going on, or overpower them, though I doubted he would do either while we were the only two awake. Too much of a risk if they had guns.

To my shock, he reached into he pocket and drew the last thing I would expect to see in the hands of a 200 year old vampire - a mobile phone. Where he got it, I had no idea.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, stopping several feet in front of them with the phone in his cupped palms. "Would this device happen to belong to either of you?"

I almost laughed out loud. He must have slipped it out of one of their pockets without them noticing early on when we were boarding the train. What had compelled him to do so, and why he was bringing it out now, I didn't know, but the whole idea seemed funny.

"It's mine," Sean said, frowning. "Where'd you get that?"

"It was on the ground as we were taking our seats," Mr. Crepsley said smoothly, and though Sean's hand was reached out, he didn't pass the phone over. "I assumed it had belonged to one of the past passengers, but it occurred to me just a moment ago that it could be yours. Though, to be honest, I would like to be sure it is yours before I hand it over. As I understand, these go for rather a lot of money."

It was good to know he'd retained anything I'd tried to tell him about modern human life.

"It's mine, I'm positive," Sean said.

"It is not yours?" Mr. Crepsley said to Brian. I couldn't figure out what on earth he was doing now. He extended it forward towards Brian, and when both men looked down at it, Brian to confirm that no, it was not his, and Sean to snatch it from him, Mr. Crepsley made his move. It was very subtle; he stooped gradually, took a breath, and exhaled into both men's faces. Immediately, both slumped forward onto the ground, unconscious by his special vampire knock-out gas.

"What-?" I started, jumping up, but Mr. Crepsley shook his head and put a finger to his lips.

"Come with me," he said. "There is no need to wake the others. Let us take a walk so we can speak in private." I glanced quickly at the police, still blacked out, then hurried to follow my mentor as he silently slid the compartment door open. I smiled at him when he shut the door equally as quietly and we began to walk down the train's rumbling hall; it had been a long time since I'd been able to talk to him completely alone.

"What was that all about?" I asked him as he fell into step beside me.

"What, them?" he said. "It is obvious from the moment we departed the ticket station that they were not going to allow us a chance to be without them, and so I grabbed the first object I could out of one's pocket to create a distraction when I thought it necessary."

"Oh," I said, smiling. "That was good planning. Why didn't you use it earlier?"

"There was no need," he shrugged. "I do not think we are in immediate danger while on the train. If they were going to try to harm us, they would have already. They have been sent to follow us, no doubt, and I think we would be wise to shake them as soon as possible when we get off the train, but for now, we have no options to get rid of them completely. They should stay knocked out until we reach our destination, at which point we will be able to lose them very quickly."

"Yeah," I said, shrugging. I hadn't thought that far; all I had been thinking about was why they were following us in the first place. I asked Mr. Crepsley if he had given that any thought.

"I have," he nodded. "I cannot come up with anything too viable. Desmond Tiny was my first guess, but it seems highly unlikely that he would send human police officers to watch us. It is the same conclusion with Lady Evanna. As of now, I have no other possible explanations. What about you?"

I sighed. "I'm not sure," I told him. "I've been trying to figure it out, but I can't think of anything. Although, there is something..." I told him about my conversation with the man in the general store, and how he had seemed normal - if a bit nosy - at first, then at the end of my visit was acting suspiciously.

When I'd finished my story, we had reached one end of the train and a door marked - DO NOT ENTER - CONDUCTOR AND AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY - was in front of us. We turned and headed back in the other direction. Mr. Crepsley stroked his scar thoughtfully. "It is unfortunate you did not mention this earlier," he said. "But I can see how you would not remember until it was too late. That certainly can explain this a little better. Did you tell him where we are headed, or your name?"

"No, I said, "I didn't tell..." my voice trailed off and my eyes narrowed. "Wait. No, I never did tell him my name."

"Good," Mr. Crepsley nodded. "Then..."

"No," I interrupted him, shaking my head, "but he knew it. When I was leaving, he used my name. He knew my name and I never told him."

Mr. Crepsley frowned and stopped. "That is unsettling. I am not sure how he could have known, and it certainly adds a bit of urgency to our escape. I cannot imagine how he would have suddenly realized who you are. You have never seen him before, I am assuming?"

"No! Never!"

"Then this is strange indeed." He sighed and scratched his scar again, beginning to pace. "Nevertheless, there is no way off the train until it has stopped moving. The most we can do is be sure that we are off the train and away from the humans as soon as we arrive at our destination." He pressed his to fingertips to his mouth as he thought. We'd come to an empty compartment in the train, and he slid the door open and sat on the first seat heavily. "Perhaps it would be best to avoid travelling in public from now on. At least for a little while. If there was something that sent a flag up in that town, it is bound to happen again."

"You're probably right," I agreed miserably, sitting beside him. I wracked my brains, trying to remember every detail of what had happened seconds before the man at the store had used my name. He had been sitting behind the front desk, at a computer, prepared to ring up my stuff. I could only guess it had been something on the computer that had told him, but I could not for the life of me figure out what. It had been years since I'd used a computer. All I could think of that he could have seen about me was maybe an obituary from when we had faked my death. But even if he'd compared me to a picture of my twelve-year-old self, I didn't think he'd recognize me.

We sat for a long time, the noise of the train clattering over the tracks the only sound echoing in the compartment. I sighed, looking at my mentor. It had been a long time since I'd been able to talk to him without the others, and I didn't know when I'd have another chance. I decided to ask him something that had been bothering me.

"Mr. Crepsley," I said, and he turned to face me, eyebrows raised. "What's wrong? Why have you been so...quiet lately?"

He looked at me blankly for a second, then turned away, staring out one of the pitch-black windows. "What do you mean?"

"You've had this dark look in your eyes, like you're angry, or hiding something. And ever since we talked to Evanna, you've hardly said anything to anyone. You've become reclusive, and you're more touchy than usual."

"I..." he paused, "I do not know." He leaned back and closed his eyes. "I do not understand anything. I do not..." His voice trailed off with a groan and his face fell forward into his hands. I shifted uncomfortably, unused to seeing my mentor ever displaying any signs of distress or uncertainty. "I feel like I do not know anything anymore," he said, and his voice cracked halfway through.

"Are you all right?" I asked delicately.

His exhaled and shook his head. "Everything is wrong," he said hoarsely.

"So then why haven't you said anything? You haven't even talked to Arra. I guess I thought you two would have more to talk about now than ever. So why haven't you?"

"I do not know what to say," he murmured. "These are very strange circumstances, nothing I could have ever imagined us being in."

"But doesn't that give you a lot to say?" I said. "Instead of you both being, I don't know, upset about this, why don't you look at it as a good thing? I mean," I smiled and gave him an encouraging pat on the back, "you're going to have a baby. You should be excited."

He looked away as if I were embarrassing him. "It is not like that."

"Why? Because Evanna said it has to do with destiny? Because vampires aren't supposed to be able to have children? Why should that make it any less exciting?" I was winging this completely, but thought I was doing a decent job, all things considered.

"I am afraid that she will be angry with me," he said, lifting his head and running a hand through his short red hair.

"That's dumb," I told him. "Why would she be mad at you?"

He gave me a look. "I do not think she is especially happy to be pregnant."

"You 'don't think' she is? Well, do you _know _that?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Then ask her! She'll tell you the truth. Of course she wouldn't tell Evanna she was happy about it - she'd just gotten the shock of her life. You won't know how she really feels unless you ask her. And I think you'd both be happier if you talked about it. Stop being so miserable about something that should be a good, exciting thing. Haven't you ever wanted to have a child?"

He looked at me with raised eyebrows, then a humored look forced itself though his weary and heavy expression. "I have," he said, cracking a smile. "And you were enough."

I made a face at him. "Really," I said. "Just do it. I can't stand how tense everything is. It's made me uncomfortable."

He smiled at me, and when he did it looked as though a bit of a weight had been lifted from his shoulder. "I apologize if I made you uncomfortable," he said. "I will speak to Arra at the first chance we have alone."

"Really?" I said.

He nodded, and I smiled back at him. "Good," I said. "I'm glad you're taking my advice. So, can I say it now?"

"Say what?" he asked, frowning.

"Congratulations," I said, grinning at him and putting my arms around his shoulders. "You're going to be a dad."

As I pulled away, I could see him trying to keep his smile small, but his ears were reddening. "Thank you," he said, a forced stiffness to his voice. "I must say, I have given it a lot of thought as of late, of course, and it is quite an unnerving prospect."

"Oh yeah?" I said. "So is that was all this is? Pre-baby jitters? Scared to be a daddy?"

He looked away, his face flushing an even darker red. "Of course not," he said. "I am just feeling anxious. And it is getting late. We should return to our compartment again. I do not know how much longer we have till our stop." He got up and opened the door before I could say anything, letting me out then beginning to follow me down the train's hall.

"You'll be a great dad," I persisted, taking long, almost skipping steps to keep up with his long legs. I was in a better mood than I had been for a while. "I mean, you sort of practiced on me. And now that you've put me through life at a freak show, a hellish, bitter cold trek to a mountain where you volunteered me for a set of Trials where I was almost certainly doomed, a couple battles, and a few run-ins with Destiny and his crazy, frog-obsessed daughter, you know exactly what _not_ to do."

"Very funny," he growled, though his smile still seemed glued to his face. "I would like to remind you how many time I have saved your ungrateful arse. You are still in one piece, are you not?"

"'Course I am," I grinned, shoving him on the shoulder. "So see, you've got nothing to be afraid of." We'd reached our initial compartment now. Inside, Arra was awake, staring out the window, while Harkat, Vancha, and the two police officers reminded fast asleep around her.

"There you are," she said when we stepped inside, her voice still slow and soft as if she had just woken up. "What happened to them?" She jerked her thumb towards the sleeping figures of Sean and Brian.

"I knocked them out," he explained, stopping in front of her. "I wanted a chance to talk with Darren. And now, if you do not mind, I would like to speak with you in private while we have a chance."

She blinked, looking slightly surprised, then nodded. "Of course," she said, and when he offered her a hand to help her up, she ignored it. I turned away, grinning. I could feel things getting back to normal already.

I watched as they walked away from our compartment, no doubt headed for the empty one Mr. Crepsley and I had sat in seconds ago. I wondered what they would say, what they were each thinking. Part of me wanted to follow them and know, but another bigger part was happy to let them have a moment, just between the two of them. Or, I felt a funny smile slide onto my face at the thought, three. Thinking such a sappy thought made me feel old, but somewhat warm and fuzzy too.

When Mr. Crepsley and Arra returned to our compartment well over an hour later, I glanced quickly at them both and then turned away, not wanting them to feel like I was prying or intruding. I leaned back contentedly in my chair, closing my eyes. For a moment, I even forgot about the two police officers blacked out at the end of the compartment. For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely happy.

The temporary feeling of comfort and happiness did not last long. About a minute later, a whistle blew, and a voice over a loudspeaker announced that we'd be coming to a stop in about five minutes, urging passengers to gather all personal belongings and remain in their compartment for further instruction from train officials.

"That's weird," I thought aloud as I stood to go wake Vancha and Harkat. "They didn't say that at the other stops, did they?"

"I do not recall them saying anything about 'further instructions', no," Mr. Crepsley said, reaching under the seat to drag out the small bag of belongings he carried. "I filled Arra in on your conversation with the man at the store in town. She, like I , thinks it best to get off the train and out of the station as soon as possible when we stop and go into hiding till we can plan our next move. It is crucial we do not call attention to ourselves for a while. When they - " he gestured at the still-sleeping Brian and Sean, "wake up an realize we are gone, they will most likely alert this city's authorities. We should plan to travel as quickly and inconspicuously away from here as possible."

The train was slowing down now, and Vancha and Harkat were getting up sleepily. Having missed most of what Mr. Crepsley said, Vancha muttered, "What is it? Why are we hurrying?"

"Them, for one," Arra said, standing and jerking a thumb at the police. "We'll tell you the rest later, it would take too long now. Is everyone ready? The train's almost stopped."

Everyone nodded, and Vancha cracked his neck a couple times. It was only now that I noticed his ridiculous purple pajamas again and couldn't conceal a smirk. "Oh, we're just going to master 'inconspicuous'," I said sarcastically.

"Stuff it, Shan," he growled as Harkat laughed. "It's your own damn fault."

I would have come up with a smart retort, but the train screeched to a full stop and the sounds of the doors beginning to fly open all down the train filled the air. "They told everyone to wait," I pointed out as Arra started for the door. "Don't you think they'll stop us?"

"Not if they can't catch us," she said, then pulled our compartment's door open and started down the hall to one of the doors that would lead to the station.

Mr. Crepsley, Vancha Harkat, and I hurried after her. It was when we passed other, occupied compartments that I started to feel uneasy. Inside each was a train employee, and each door, I could tell by the direction of the handle, was locked tight. Why were they locked when passengers had to get out in a couple minutes? And why, when we'd been told to "wait for further instruction" was no one trying to stop us? I wanted to voice these concerns, but by the time I'd worked out how odd it all was, we had reached the open door.

This station was huge. The train had brought us into a large building, with cement floors, benches, lamps, and even a small cafe. You would think, in such a giant station, in a busy city, there would always be multitudes of people, especially now, at the beginning of commuter time. Yet as far as I could see, there were only about fifteen people here, all standing as though they were waiting to get on this train.

"Mr. Crepsley," I hissed, trying to stop him before he got off the train. "Something isn't-"

But he and Arra had already stepped down from the train's doorway onto the station's cement ground, and before I knew it, Vancha and Harkat were behind me, and I had no choice but to follow them out. When the five of us were out of the train, the doors immediately slammed shut behind us. We spun on our heals to stare at them at the sudden sound. It was as if someone had been watching, timing it perfectly so we could get off of the train without being able to get back on. By the time we turned around again, it was too late. The fifteen people that had been gathered near us began closing in, and before anyone could process what was happening, their guns had been drawn.

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Dun dun dun...cliff hanger! I apologize for this chapter being incredibly long, I got a little carried away :D

See that little button down there, the 'Review this chapter' one? It's just begging you to click on it and leave a review, even a teeny weeny one! Really, guys, I appreciate them so much :) Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

**A/N: **Well, I got this one out much faster than I thought I would! It's on the shorter side, since this chapter was originally going to be this plus what I have now split into chapter 5, but it was starting to get way too long again, so I cut it. Anyway, the good news there is that I've already got a decent amount of chapter 5 written, so it should be another pretty fast update from here! Yay! :D

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I thought we would get a shout of, "Show us your hands!" or, "Get on the ground!" like you saw in police shows, but that wasn't how they welcomed us. Before any of us could fully comprehend what was happening, or even begin to try and figure out why we were suddenly being held at gun point, they were on us. They moved quickly, closing in, whipping out handcuffs. I twisted to try and escape the elbow-lock a large man with a mustache had placed on me, but the barrel of a gun pressed to my temple stopped me cold. I felt the cool, sharp metal of the cuffs being slapped onto my wrists.

"Nobody move!" the man with the mustache bellowed. "Nobody say a word. Any attempt to escape or harm us, and we WILL shoot you."

Though I was being held in my spot, the gun had been lowered from my and Harkat's heads. The same couldn't be said for Arra, Mr. Crepsley, and Vancha. The three of them were still being heavily guarded. Though I knew they all could have easily snapped through their binds, with the threat of a bullet in their heads, they were cooperating.

Mustache Face had transferred me over to the watch of another, smaller officer and was lifting up his radio. "We've got the suspects secured, we're moving out to transport them to the station now."

As he said it, the five of us started being dragged off through the station towards the door. My mind was racing. The closer we got, the more clear it became what was going on. The doors of the station had been roped off, and guards stood on the outside, blocking anyone from entering the station. They had been waiting for us. For whatever reason, they wanted us captured. The town we had boarded the train in either knew that, or they too wanted us taken in. It was a small town, maybe they didn't have enough officers, or a large-enough jail. So they'd sent Sean and Brian to watch us till we got here. They must have alerted the train employees as well. Then, they made sure that when we got to the station, there would be no civilians, just police. Still, I couldn't think why they would want us, or consider us dangerous.

"Hold up," the man dragging Mr. Crepsley along said, putting a hand up. "Where are the police who were supposed to be with them?"

There was a second of silence where the officers looked around, searching for Sean and Brain. When there was no sign of them, Mustache started to bellow again. "What did you do to them?" he roared, getting in Mr. Crepsley's face.

"We have no idea what you are talking about," Mr. Crepsley said, his voice surprisingly composed. "In fact, I would very much like to know what you suspect we have done -."

"Shut up!" Mustache barked. He rounded on two smaller-framed men beside him. "Denton, Shaw, go in, make sure they're all right. Have an ambulance on the phone and waiting. You know what these people are capable of." The two men jogged dutifully towards the train, radios in hand.

"What do you mean, 'what we're capable of'?" Arra asked coldly. "We -."

"No more talking," Mustache growled, stepping towards Arra threateningly. She didn't flinch. "And that's my last warning."

No more than a minute later, Denton and Shaw returned, their faces set. "Fast asleep, stupid country bumpkins," one of them reported, rolling his eyes. "Had to shout in their ears to wake 'em up. I told them they could keep their sorry asses on the train and go straight home."

Several of the officers with us snorted and muttered about the 'incompetent farmers', but Mustache only nodded. "Very well, they weren't gonna be any help here in the first place. Get this scum out of here, and don't forget to take their bags."

With that, they were shoving us out the station's door into the night air. The sun was luckily still down, but I knew sunrise couldn't be far off. Once out of the station, they separated us and pushed each of us into a waiting car. Harkat was put in with me, but the others were put in three different cruisers.

I looked at the Little Person as the cruiser drove off through the city. A cop up in the passenger's seat read us our rites, then gave us each a stern warning to keep silent and not speak with each other. They were treating us like criminals, but it could have been much worse; as far as I was concerned, it paid to go along with what they wanted and cooperate, at least for now. Raised eyebrows and worried looks were the only way Harkat and I communicated the entire ride.

The city's police headquarters wasn't far from the train station, but when we arrived, the horizon was beginning to glow, signaling that the sun was rising. I hoped that wherever they put the vampires would have no windows. The cars pulled around to the back of the building, where more officers, each armed, were waiting for us. Rather than take us all inside at once, they emptied the cars one at a time. Mr. Crepsley first, then Arra, then Vancha. After they had gone in, most of the guard outside followed, leaving only a few to escort me and Harkat inside.

The police station was buzzing with activity, even at this early hour of the morning. The room they brought us into seemed to be some sort of a holding room, where they ran through anything that had to be done before putting us into a cell (or whatever it was they planned to do to us). There were several people already in the room: a couple teenagers who were slurring at the cop in front of them with a clipboard, a scantily-dressed woman, a scrawny man who was missing a couple teeth, and a middle-aged woman who was having a very serious argument with her shoe. Sitting on a chair in a corner of the room was a boy, no older than three, who was by himself, his little eyes on the missing-toothed man. Something told me the little boy wasn't one of the criminals.

The five of us were taken to the other side of the holding room and cuffed to our chairs. We were the only ones in the room handcuffed. Whatever we had supposedly done must have been worse than whatever these people had done.

Behind a glass window, there was a man with a computer, a camera, and various other electronic devices. Three of the officers who had brought us in - one was Mustache - went over to the window, and the man immediately looked up. Though they were speaking too quietly for anyone else in the room to hear, my vampire ears could pick up exactly what they were saying.

"Told you we'd get them without any trouble, Mike" Mustache was saying. "I'm not sure who the big kid or the guy in the pajamas are, but they were with them, so we'll detain them too. Could be accomplices. Rick's bringing their stuff in now, we'll have a look, see what they had with them."

My gaze slid sideways to Vancha and Harkat. This was just getting stranger. They had been expecting me, Mr. Crepsley, and Arra, but not them?

"When can we get the witnesses out here?" Mustache continued.

"Mmm," the guy behind the window, Mike, said uncertainly, staring at the computer screen. "Before they're all here? Could be a while. Have to fly them in. Should be here in about...eight, ten hours?"

Mustache gave an unsatisfied grunt. "Let's book them, see if we can ID them, then stick the suspects in a solitary cell for a while. They can wait."

I heard the door to my left shut and turned to see a large, bald cop carrying our few small bags. He nodded briefly at Mustache, then ran a card through a door and disappeared deeper into the station, presumably to look through our stuff. I felt a wave of panic pass over me. My diary was in there, and it held many personal details of my life. The idea of someone poking through it both annoyed and worried me. When they read all about my life as a vampire, they'd either believe it and panic or think I was crazy and throw me in a psych ward...maybe both. And the more I thought of the other things, like weapons and blood, we kept, I realized that my journal was the least of our worries.

"Uh, Dave?" Mike said, looking up from the computer screen. "We've got a problem. We're already overflowing here; don't have an empty cell in the whole damn place."

Mustache, that is, Dave, cursed. "They're bloody murderers, and we've gotta put them in with the candy bar thieves. I'll tell you... can't you move people around?"

"I'll see what I can do," Mike said hesitantly. "But already, half of them," he gestured at the half-dozen others around us, "are out here 'cause we've got nothing better to do with them."

Murderers? We turned to look at each other as soon as Dave had uttered the word. All it once, it had hit me, and I could tell by the looks on my fellow hunters' faces that it was dawning on them as well. We were here for something we _didn't _do before we reached Evanna's. We were being accused of the murders the vampaneze had committed. It seemed like years ago, like something that would have well blown over by now, but I realized that it had been no more than a few months ago that we had gone to investigate the killings and found we were dealing with vampaneze. The hotel employees, the ones who were suspicious of us all along, must have given out our descriptions and the names we'd given them, and that was why no one had been expecting Harkat or Vancha; they had never seen them. I bet the hotel staff were the witnesses they were bringing in. Our descriptions and names must have been all over the news - every town and city around must have been searching for us since then. All it took was the man in the general store to recognize me, poke around on the internet, and then he'd know my name, and who we are. He called the town's police, they probably set it up with this city's police and the train authorities. And now, they had the prime suspects for the serial killings in custody.

"Lieutenant," the bald man who had brought our bags in said, and Dave turned. "Hurry up and book them, the captain wants to question them himself."

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All righty, four chapters in...sounds like the perfect time to review! So please, let me know your thoughts :D Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

**A/N: **Usually I try to come up with something about the chapter, or writing in general, or something remotely interesting to say in my ANs, but today, I've got nothing. So I'll give a big thank you to my readers and reviewers ("Thank you!" :D), and off you go...

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'Hurry up and book them' didn't seem to go as smoothly as they had planned. When they ran our names (the names they'd been given by the hotel) and nothing, not even birth certificates, came up, they were annoyed. When they asked us a few basic questions and we gave them no answers, they got frustrated. When they tried to take pictures of Mr. Crepsley, Arra, and Vancha, only to end up with dozens of blurry, fuzzy, shadowy shots, they were at the end of their rope. And maybe that was why they were a little nastier than necessary when they dragged us out of the holding area to put us in more confined cells. Mr. Crepsley and Arra, being main suspects and adults, were each placed in with other members of their respective genders and were being watched closely by guards. As far as they knew, I was Mr. Crepsley and Arra's son, and though that made me a 'possible accessory to the fact', as they put it, I was also a minor, and therefor was placed in a cell with less dangerous criminals. Among them were the two teen boys I'd seen earlier, as well as the missing-toothed man. Vancha was also in with me (we overheard them discussing him in his pajamas - apparently, they assumed there was something a little wrong with him and thought he was not much of a threat). Before putting each of us in a cell, they patted us down. When it was Harkat's turn, they took off some of his layers, and lo and behold, were met with a very shocking surprise. It turned out that having grey, stitched-up skin was grounds for getting a more secluded cell.

From the cell in which Vancha and I sat, we could see Mr. Crepsley in with a dozen other dangerous-looking men. He got up a couple times and moved around the cell, as though he was just stretching his legs, and moved towards the side closest to us, but the guards were keeping too close an eye on him for us to communicate in any way. Though guards were occasionally peering in on us as well, Vancha and I were mostly free to talk and do as we wanted. For the most part, we remained silent, not wishing to call attention to ourselves.

The luck of the vampires was with us in its own small way. The cell Vancha and I were being held in was built up against a cement wall. So one of the four sides of it was cement, the others solid metal bars. Shortly after being locked in the cell, a couple cops walked down the jail's hallway past us, leading a handcuffed Arra between them. Two men in suits followed them - one of the men had a badge clipped to his jacket. I guessed he was the captain. Arra's gaze flickered from us to Mr. Crepsley as they led her around to a doorway in a wall next our cell; the wall around the corner from the cement wall of our cell. The two cops opened the door, pushed her inside, and allowed the two men in suites to enter before slamming the door behind them and walking away.

As soon as they were out of view, Vancha and I immediately sprung to our feet, then hurried to sit on the bench along the cement wall. There wasn't much space, but the older man we'd seen in the holding room was slumped down on it, taking up enough space for several people to sit.

"Hey," Vancha said to him, "budge up."

The man stared at us with glazed eyes for a couple seconds, swaying on his seat, then pushed to the side, allowing us to sit next to him. He looked too drunk to argue. To our luck, we could hear the voices behind the wall.

"All right, Arra," a man's calm voice was saying, his tone neither raised nor threateningly quiet. He could have been speaking to his friend. "If you don't mind, we have a few questions to ask you. First of all, our sources tell us your name is Arra Horston. But I think you know as well as I do that that's not really your name, is it? We can't find records for anyone under than name. If you can tell us your name, we can finish this all up faster.

"Well, I'm in no rush," Arra said, her tone equally as unconcerned and casual as the man's. "It's more comfortable here than the damn crowded cell you put me in. So, let's stick with Arra Horston."

Vancha and I grinned at each other. She sounded like she was enjoying herself. From the questioning room, there was a pause, and then, with the strained tone of someone trying to keep frustration out of their voice, "That's fine for now, we can get back to that question later, and I'll ask you some others in the mean time. Of course, you retain the right to not answer any questions, but I'm sure there are places both you and I would rather be than here. The more you answer honestly, the sooner you can leave, all right? I'll give you some easy ones to start out with. Let's start with a little about you. What year were you born?"

I snorted, able to picture the snicker on Arra's face clear as day.

"1821."

The man laughed. "Very funny, Arra. Now, please, tell us the real year."

"It might have been 1822. Hard to keep track."

There was silence again. "Well, I can ask a different question if you'd like," he said. "Let's see...can you tell me about your husband, who is currently going by Vur Horston?"

"It's not polite to talk about people when they aren't around," Arra said pointedly. "If you have any questions for him, ask yourself."

"What about the boy, Darren? We were told he's your son. Is that true?"

"Do you believe everything you hear?" she asked, with a tone of mild amusement.

"Listen." This was a different voice, a harsher, gruffer one. It was accompanied by the sound of a fist banging against a table. "You and this Vur Horston are the main suspects in a serial killing. We looked through his bag, and you know what we found? Blood. Bottle after bottle of blood. What is this, some sick kick for you and your husband? Kill people and bottle their blood?" His voice lowered to a threatening whisper, "Things aren't looking too good for you, lady, so I suggest you start talking."

I was totally absorbed in listening to little game of good-cop-bad-cop and had become unaware of the fact that Vancha and I were sitting in a jail cell, listening through a cement wall. That is, until the overwhelming stench of cheap beer was blown in my face. I crinkled my nose and looked up. The man with missing teeth, the one who had been sitting next to me and Vancha, was now standing in front of us, his sun-damaged, malnourishment-wrinkled face inches away from ours.

"Do you mind?" Vancha asked him irritably, motioning for the man to back up.

"Mind what?" the man slurred, reaching out to pinch a strand of Vancha's green hair. He giggled like a child as Vancha pushed him away.

"Shove off," Vancha grumbled.

The drunk was resilient, that was for sure. Before we could tune back in on Arra's interrogation, he had staggered back over to the empty bit of bench next to me. At least, that was what he aimed for, he instead ended up half sitting on my lap. "You know what they got me in here for?" he asked, leaning forwards to talk right in my ear. I dumped him off me onto the floor. "Hmmm?" He was in my face again. I tried to turn away from him and block out his reeking breath and slurring, gravelly voice. "It was all that damn Jessica's fault. She..."

Vancha stood, grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him to the other side of the cell. "Here," I heard him say as he dropped the man next to another wobbling drunk. "Bother him."

Vancha made a face at me as he returned to his seat, muttering under his breath about humans who couldn't hold their liquor. I snorted, then once again pressed my ear to the wall, hoping we didn't miss anything important.

We'd returned to the conversation in time to hear another fist being pounded against the table, the sound of footsteps, then the slamming of a door. We looked around to see one of the suited men storming out of the interrogation room, his face red. Vancha chuckled quietly, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. "Humans - they don't stand a chance against us."

The calm-voiced officer was talking again. "The captain doesn't have a very good temper," he was saying sympathetically. "I certainly apologize for his behavior. I-."

"This could go on and on," Vancha sighed, pulling away from the wall. "We should make a move and get out of here now. I don't see much of a point in waiting."

"How are-?" I began to ask, but he held up a hand to silence me.

"If there's only one person in there with her, now is the best chance we have to get out without any glitches," he said. "We should act fast." He looked at the wall, tapping it gently with a fingernail. "This wall is thin; any of us can easily get through it. The walls to the outside will probably be thicker, but a couple blows should take them down."

Other people in our cell were listening to him with quizzical expressions, though none said anything. They probably assumed he was just another disillusioned drunk hoping to break out.

"Larten will be able to bend the bars of his cell with no trouble," he continued. "The guards may try to stop him, but if we can time it correctly, everything will happen at once, and by the time he makes it here, we'll have the walls down and be able to flit out of here."

He wasn't talking to me anymore, he was talking himself through the plan, forming it as he went.

"Hang on," I interrupted him. "If you and me and Mr. Crepsley and Arra get out through the walls, what about Harkat?"

Vancha paused, then scraped uncomfortably at his fingernails. "He could be anywhere in the jail," he said. "For all we know, they might have carted him out of here all ready to take him to hospital, trying to figure out what he is."

"But, you don't mean...no!" I shook my head. "We can't go without him!"

"Darren," he groaned. "I don't want to leave the Little Person here either, but we need to get out while we have an easy chance. You, me, and Larten are in the same area, it'll be easy for us to escape. But they could be keeping Arra and Harkat anywhere. Arra's one of the hunters, and an important one at that. While we know where she is, while all the hunters are together, we should make our move. Harkat isn't necessary for our mission."

"No way!" I said, crossing my arms. "If you leave him, leave me too."

"You are being ridiculous," he growled.

"I don't care," I told him flatly.

He swore under his breath. "All right, fine," he spat. "Once we get out, IF it's safe, and IF I think we can do it without getting caught, I'll come back and TRY to find him. Is that good enough for you?"

I thought about it for a second. On the one hand he was right - Harkat wasn't a hunter, and we should be seizing the chance to get away while we still could. That would be the vampire thing to do. But on the other hand, Harkat was my best friend, and he was an important part of the team too. Finally, I looked up at Vancha and nodded, sighing.

"Thank you," he huffed, rolling his eyes. "Now, we need to talk to Larten, make sure he knows the plan."

"What about Arra?" I said. "How will she know?"

He smiled. "I'm sure she can hear us every bit as clearly as we can hear her. Better; she doesn't have other distractions." He shot a glare at the drunken man who seemed once again to be making his way over to us. "But we can check to be sure."

He leaned his head up against the cement wall, and said in a normal tone, as if he were still talking to me, "Arra, if you can hear us, let us know."

We were both silent, waiting for her to answer. At first, there was no response, but after a few seconds she started talking. "You know," she said, her voice smoothing over the sarcastic edge it had had before, "I wasn't going to say anything in front of that other police officer, but now that it's just you and me, there is something I think you should know."

"Oh?" the calm-voiced cop said eagerly. She was making him think she was fooled into their little good-cop-bad-cop scheme. "What is it?"

"Well," she said, "It'll be easier if I show you. If you can get me one of the bottles of blood from my bag, I can tell you. Otherwise, it would be to hard to explain."

"Hmm," I could hear the hesitation in his voice. "I'm sorry, but we aren't allowed to tamper with evidence."

I looked at Vancha, frowning. "She obviously can't hear us, she..."

"Shhh!" he shushed me, waving a hand.

"Oh, well, Sergeant, I understand," Arra said. "If you don't have the _authority_," she stressed the word, playing with his ego, "maybe you could get one of the higher-ranked officers to fetch it, then I could show them. I would rather tell you than another officer, but I understand."

There was no doubt an innocent, persuasive smile spread across her face. I crossed my fingers, hoping that he would take her bait. Sure enough, after a couple seconds of what was surely inner conflict and turmoil, the Sergeant said, "All right, I'll go get it one. But I can't let you touch it."

"It's a deal," she said, and we could hear his footsteps as he walked to the door. Seconds later, he was striding down the hall, a look of determination on his face.

Vancha gave a snort into the wall as we heard a snapping of metal chains as Arra ripped through her handcuffs. "Stupid human, I cannot believe he fell for that. That was pitiful, Arra Sails," he said. "Really, flattery isn't your strong point."

"Well," Arra's voice replied, and it was louder and clearer now, as though she had come to stand right against the wall, "I could have knocked the poor bastard out, but it would have been much more work on my part, and frankly, I couldn't be bothered. Men will fall for anything if a question of their power is on the line. This worked fine."

"It did," Vancha agreed. "Now, you heard our plan, I presume?"

"Every word," she said. "The wall across from the one we're speaking through is an outer wall, and I can get through it. If you can time it with Larten, we could be out in less than a minute."

"Good," Vancha said. "Can we flit out of here?"

She paused. "I don't know. If we can escape without, it would be a safer option. I think running should be fine. These humans are not particularly well-organized or trained, clearly."

"Fair enough," Vancha said. "If that isn't fast enough, I could take you on my back, and Darren could go-"

"Over my dead body," she snapped. "If they react quickly, we can chance it. Now hurry and talk to Larten before that naieve buffoon comes back. What the hell could I tell him about a bottle of blood anyway?"

Vancha chuckled, shaking his head. "Aye. Be ready. When you hear me crash this wall, hurry and get down the one to the outside so Larten will have time." He stood, motioned for me to follow him, then crossed the cell. He stopped at the wall of bars next to the hallway that separated us from Mr. Crepsley's cell. Though the guard was watching him closely, Mr. Crepsley stepped nonchalantly nearer to us.

"So," Vancha said, in a voice as casual as one he would use to comment on the weather, "if you can hear us, Larten, scratch that God-awful scar on your face."

Mr. Crepsley's scowl from the cell across from ours made the answer obvious. Vancha was speaking quietly; too quietly from any of the guards to hear, but Mr. Crepsley's super-sensitive ears could pick up all, or at least most, of what we were saying.

"Good," Vancha said, turning inconspicuously away so it wouldn't be clear we were talking to him. "We're breaking out now. We've already talked to Arra. Just follow my instructions - it would take too long to explain it all. You are going to pry apart the bars of your cell and head this way. Darren -" he looked at me, and I nodded to show I was paying attention "will handle the bars into our cell at the same time. Get in here as fast as you can, and by the time you do, Arra and I will have the walls down. We'll hit the outside running before they even know what's going on. Sound good?"

We looked across at Mr. Crepsley, who gave an ever-so-slight nod, edging his way closer to the bars of the cell. The guard was watching him suspiciously now, though he wasn't making any motion to stop him.

"Ya' know," an unwelcome familiar voice said from behind us, "them walls are hard. You can't kick 'em down, I've tried."

Vancha sighed, not bothering to look at the drunk. "Darren," he said, as he started for the wall. "If he gets in the way, snap his neck. It will be a small loss for civilization."

I gave a nervous smile. The drunk either didn't hear Vancha or wasn't fazed by the threat on his life. I had a feeling it wasn't the first he'd received.

Once Mr. Crepsley was in position, I looked to Vancha for a signal. His eyes were trained on the guard watching Mr. Crepsley. I knew that when the guard looked away for a split second, we would act. My hand reached out to touch one of the bars. It was thin; it would be no problem for me to drag two or three to the side in no time. I tried to figure out how far I would have to move them for Mr. Crepsley to get through.

Vancha didn't give a specific signal, but the sound of his shoulder crashing into the wall was enough to alert me along with half the city that we were escaping now. I almost jumped and turned to see what type of hole he'd made, but I remembered my job and quickly pried apart a gap in the bars. They were by no means easy to bend, but by the time any of the guards or humans could figure out what was going on, I was done, and Mr. Crepsley had bolted into our cell. I sprinted after him, squinting to avoid falling bits of cement as we darted after Vancha and Arra, who were already outside. I felt a wave of guilt as my feet hit the pavement and I thought of Harkat. I could only hope that we'd be able to come back for him later. For now, we had escaped.

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Ooh, look at that pretty blue link/button down there next to the little speech bubble...click on it and see what happens! :D


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

**A/N: **This chapter is a little special :) Not just because it took me forever to update, and look at that, I finally turned up again, but because today marks my first year on Fanfiction! Yay! That also gives you special reason to review, I think? Please? :D

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I saw the flaw in our plan as soon as Mr. Crepsley and I dove through the break Arra had made in the wall. The sun had risen. I heard my mentor hiss as the sunlight scorched his eyes. I knew the vampires would be able to grin and bear it for a little while, but I was worried the sudden light would temporarily blind their sensitive eyes.

"Run straight!" I told them. "Go!"

We could hear hell breaking loose in the jail as we ran. Not only had we, their murderers, escaped, but in the confusion, other criminals were escaping through our breaks in the walls as well. A part of me felt bad for releasing who could have been dangerous people on the streets, but I hoped that the distractions would fare better for our chances.

Even without flitting, we could easily outrun the humans, and by the time they got cars after us we were well out of their sights. The problem was the sun. After a couple minutes, all three of the vampires were visibly more red and were breathing hard. Vancha was leading the way, accustomed to being about in the daylight, but even he was sweating. Arra, and, slightly behind her, Mr. Crepsley, didn't look like they were keen on running much longer.

Five minutes after breaking out, we could hear sirens tearing through the city. Vancha lead us off the roads so the cars wouldn't be able to catch up with us. As we passed people here and there, they got out of our way, glancing at us in confusion over their shoulders. None of them knew it now, but they would more than likely receive a shock when they turned on the news that night to hear that they'd witnessed four convicts in the act of escaping.

"Vancha!" Mr. Crepsley called, and Vancha slowed a bit so he could catch up. "We need...to stop!" Mr. Crepsley panted. "We cannot be in the sun much longer."

Vancha nodded and began to slow to a walk. "We'll be okay stopping for a moment," he said as Arra and I came up beside them. "We should figure out where we're going. We could head for the sewers, come out again at night to leave the city."

"What about Harkat?" I interjected. "We have to go back for him."

"I said I would go back for him _if _it was safe," Vancha said. "We can't be sure that we're safe yet."

"So then tonight," I persisted. "We can't leave him."

Vancha cursed under his breath. "I for one am not willing to risk re-capture. They won't harm Harkat - he hasn't been accused of anything. I say we hide now and take off as soon as the sun sets."

I opened my mouth to argue, but Mr. Crepsley held a hand up to stop me. "I agree that we must hide," he said. "But Darren is right - it would be wrong to leave Harkat in the jail, regardless of whether or not he is a hunter. He is part of our group. I will go back for him tonight, and if all goes well we should be able to flee the city before midnight."

Vancha grumbled a bit, but in the end agreed that Mr. Crepsley could go after Harkat if he wanted to. We carefully made our way back to the streets to find a drain from which to access the sewers. We could still hear sirens in the distance, but for the time being, we were safe from the cops.

In a deserted alleyway, we found a metal cap over a manhole down into the sewers, and Mr. Crepsley carefully opened it. He waved the three of us through, then came in himself, replacing the top. The vampires sighed in relief as we were encased by darkness.

Before my eyes had even had a chance to adjust, Vancha said, "Follow me," and started down the tunnel. I followed the clanking and splashing of his footsteps, trying to put distance between myself and the others so we weren't splashing each other as we stepped. "Let's see if we can find somewhere a little dryer."

I doubted anything would be entirely dry - it was a sewer after all - but didn't object.

"Are you all right?" I heard Mr. Crepsley whisper to Arra, barely audible over the clanging of our feet against the metal tunnel floor.

"Fine," she replied, equally as softly. "But I don't think I'd want to run any faster. I feel a bit sick. Though, that might come with being in a sewer." I heard her laugh lightly, and as my eyes began to adjust, I saw Mr. Crepsley reach out to take her hand sympathetically.

We walked for several minutes then stopped. The ground was still wet and muggy, but it was dryer than before, and we didn't want to go too far in and have to waste time backtracking later. After all, we wouldn't be down here for long. I shuffled around, looking for somewhere relatively clean and dry. Soon, I'd found a small bit of the tunnel wall that was dented and sat inside the small concave dent , sighing. I almost found myself thinking that I should push over to make room for Harkat, and then I remembered. He was still back in the jail, probably being subjected to harsher treatment and questioning now that we had escaped. Not for the first time, I felt guilty. I sighed, resting my elbow on my knees and my chin in my hands. I looked up at Vancha, who was sitting across from me, and his ridiculous pajamas lighted my mood slightly. "So," I said, "what now?"

"Now," he said, leaning back and folding his arms, "we wait. There's not much else to do."

I turned to Mr. Crepsley. "So, how are you going to get Harkat?" I asked. "Do you want me to help you?"

He sighed, messaging his temples with the tips of his fingers. "It might be wise for two of us to go, though I am not sure you are the one for the job. It may be necessary to flit if we find ourselves in a tight spot, and I would not be able to carry you both on my back."

"Well, I'm not going with you," Vancha said. "I think the whole thing is too damn risky. We could come back for Harkat at some other point - there's no need to risk everything now, right after we've escaped."

"Yeah there is!" I argued. "They could have taken his mask off, and then he couldn't breathe! Do you want to be responsible for Harkat dying?"

"Charna's guts, Darren," he snapped. "You are acting like a human. They wouldn't let him die. Harkat would rather us get away."

I stared hard at him for a couple seconds, folding my arms and frowning. Then an idea struck me and I had to fight to keep an evil smile off my face. "You know," I said. "I'm sure they've kept all our stuff. Evidence, you know."

"I'm sure they have," Vancha said. "What point are you trying to make?"

"Well, your bag had your clothes - if you want to call them that - in it. So if you went back, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to grab that while Mr. Crepsley's getting Harkat. Then you could take those stupid pajamas off."

He glared at me. "It's your fault I have these pajamas in the first place," he said.

"But that's neither here nor there," I told him. "The point is, your clothes are back with Harkat, and you look dumb. I mean, you don't have to get them if you don't want, but it's not like you're going to have time to make new clothes. So you'll be stuck in that for a long time. Probably till the next time you go back to Vampire Mountain, come to think of it."

His face had turned an angry red.

"Unless you die first," I added. "Then a human's purple footed one-piece PJ's will be your burial garb."

Vancha stared me down for several seconds, and I stared right back at him. Then he began to laugh. "Darren Shan," he said, giving me a solid push on the shoulder, "You are a worthy vampire if I ever saw one."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

For the next several hours we waited, resting, closing our eyes occasionally, and formulating a plan to rescue Harkat (and Vancha's clothes) while avoiding recapture. Mr. Crepsley and Vancha didn't seem to think they were going to have too hard of a time breaking the Little Person out and then escaping themselves, but Mr. Crepsley conceded that a back up plan would be good, just in case. Rather than have the three of them return here, to the other side of the city where we were camped in the sewer, Arra and I would be waiting in a nearby abandoned building - we'd have to scope out the area before hand to find one. Once they had Harkat, they'd either come and get us, or, if they didn't have time, we'd be watching from a window or a roof top and could follow after them. If, after an hour, they didn't return and we thought they'd been caught, Arra and I would flee from the city. No one discussed what would happen next if it came to that. Vancha and Mr. Crepsley felt sure of their plan; they would prowl the roof of the jail, listening for any signs of Harkat, and then, when they picked up his scent or voice, Mr. Crepsley would break through the roof, snatch the Little Person up, and flit out of there. Simultaneously, Vancha would break in to grab our belongings. He could remember approximately where they seemed to bring them and doubted it would take long. I'd urged them to destroy any cameras they came across, but both insisted that their images would not come out clearly and it was a non-issue. I feared that any bit of their image could help in tracking us, but I'd done enough arguing for the day.

Once the sun had set and the city had begun to settle down, three disheveled vampires and an anxious half-vampire dragged themselves out of a manhole and set off for the city jail. It was an impressive distance to have covered in such a short amount of time while we were running away earlier, but we didn't have any need to hurry at this point. It was hours till we had to worry about the sun again, and as far as we could tell, they'd moved the search for us out of this part of the city.

As soon as we neared the jail, we began looking for tall buildings. They wouldn't have to be incredibly close - Arra's eyes could see the station from nearly four blocks away, granted we were high enough up to not have any obstructions. We didn't want to get much closer than we needed to in case the police expected us to come back and were surveying the closest-by buildings. Soon enough, a run down brick building about two blocks from the station was in front of us, towering up several stories above all the building surrounding it.

"Think this'll do?" I asked Arra as we stood looking up at it.

"I don't see why not," she said, half shrugging. "I doubt the police would think to look for us in there if they're still searching the area - too much protection around it."

She was right. Around the perimeter of the building were a number of 'No Trespassing' signs and a high chain link fence with barbed wire running through it. It would have been nearly impossible for a human to get over it.

"Well then," Vancha said. "I suppose we're off to get my clothes...oh, all right, and the Little Person if we can." He flashed me a antagonizing grin.

Arra and I wished them luck and watched as they carefully made their way to a different building to scale. From there, they'd stick to the roofs until they reached police headquarters.

"Follow me," Arra instructed after they were on the rooftop and out of sight.

She began to climb the fence, going over the barbed wire as though it was padded with foam, reaching the top within seconds and dropping to the ground on the other side. I followed suit, cringing as the little spikes dug into my flesh, but I kept going regardless, not wanting to appear weak. I had to stop and consider the spirals of wire at the top before bounding over.

When I landed next to Arra, she motioned for me to hold my hands out. I could see now that, though she hadn't reacted, the fence had ripped her hands up too - there were numerous pink spots on her palms where the skin was beginning to heal. She spat on her fingertips and rubbed it into my palms. I watched as the skin began to heal over before my eyes; no matter how many times I was healed up with vampire spit, it still amazed me.

"Come on," Arra said, tapping me on the shoulder. "Before someone sees us."

By the time I'd looked up, she was already halfway to a broken first-story window of the old building. We'd decided early to use any indoor stairs to get up to high enough floors - it would be much more inconspicuous. Arra and I clambered through the window, trying our best to avoid sharp edges, and found ourself engulfed by a musty, dusty darkness. It seemed this floor had been a large, warehouse-like storeroom, and several rotted-open boxes still remained on the floor.

"It smells disgusting in here," I commented. It hadn't been horrible at first, but as we maneuvered through towards the metal stairs, the stench was getting increasingly more foul. "What's in these boxes anyway?"

Our eyes hadn't fully adjusted yet, and though I could see lumps of the putrid-smelling stuff spilling out of the rotted crates, I couldn't quite see what it was. Arra reached down, picking up one of the things and holding it up for us to look at. As soon as she lifted it, it began to drip.

"Ugh," I groaned, stepping away. It appeared to be plastic-sealed meat, though the plastic had split at the edges and was allowing the slab to drip ancient blood near my feet. I guessed at one time the meat had been frozen, but it had long since thawed. "That's gross."

Arra nodded and chucked it away from us. It gave a sickening splat as it landed back on the cement floor. "Why humans would freeze and store meat is beyond me," she said, motioning for us to keep going. "It's disgusting."

"It's all right when it's not twenty years old," I grunted, trying not to breathe through my nose.

She snorted contemptuously - what was the point of shipping and storing food if you were a vampire? - and began to climb the metal stairs. There was a lift next to it, but neither of us dared try it. I doubted there was any electricity here, and even if there was, it looked too rickety to take our chances.

Nine floors up, we pushed open a solid cement door and left the stairs. From the ground, Arra had done a mental count and decided this was the floor we'd be best off on - high enough that we could see what was going on below, but close enough to the ground that we could catch up with Vancha, Mr. Crepsley, and (hopefully) Harkat in a rush if need be.

This floor was completely divided up. Some of the walls to what had likely once been meeting rooms and offices were chipping but still intact, while others were crumbling completely, with gaping holes in them the size of a bear. It made it easier for us to find our way to the side of the building with windows facing the police headquarters, treading carefully for fear that the floor might be rotted and decrepit as well and break under our weight. The stench had weakened only slightly, and I still tried to avoid breathing through my nose.t.

When we came to the window - one large, floor-to-ceiling type one - overlooking the station, we both let out a sigh of relief. Mr. Crepsley and Vancha were still scouring the rooftop. They were spread out, taking large, deliberate steps to avoid clunking on the ceilings. Each would pause occasionally to listen, then shake his head and keep going.

I took a seat, and Arra did the same not long after. Mr. Crepsley and Vancha were going methodically, each at opposite ends of the roof, making their way towards each other. It was a large rooftop, and I guessed it would take them a while. It seemed to make sense from a human logic point of view to put the flight-risks in the center of the jail.

It wasn't till I had a chance to relax that I realized my arm was throbbing, and there was something warm spreading over its skin. I lifted my arm up to the light and sighed - as I had expected, it was bleeding, all from a small gouge in my upper forearm.

Arra noticed me looking at my arm. She took it by my wrist and held it up to her eyes.

"I must have scratched myself on the wire," I said.

"Yes," she nodded, frowning and pulling my arm closer yet. "But there's a piece of one of the spikes stuck, right here." She pointed to the source of the bleeding, just below the underside of my elbow. It was small, and I had to squint, but I did see a small bit of silver hidden beneath the steady flow of blood.

"Here," she offered, and, nearly too fast for my eyes to see, yanked it out of my arm with her fingernails.

"Ouch!" I said loudly, pulling away, more out of surprise that anything. "Why'd you do that?"

"It's best to do it quickly," she shrugged, flicking the spike away from us and spitting on my arm. As the skin healed, she gave a sarcastic, "Think you'll survive?"

I began to grumbled at her about 'not so much as a warning', but before I could get even one word out, Arra suddenly froze, shooting a hand out to clamp it over my mouth.

I pulled her hand away, nodding to show that I'd be quiet. "What is it?" I whispered as quietly as possible.

"Do you smell that?" she asked softly. "Human blood."

I sniffed the air. "I don't smell it," I answered, but joined her in climbing to my feet.

"It's getting stronger," she said. "It's in the building."

"You didn't smell it before?" I hissed, beginning to back into the shadows of the room.

"I was paying attention to your arm!" she snapped. "And there's too much stink from downstairs. The scent is very faint. I don't think it's a cop. It doesn't smell like an ordinary human adult. It smells like someone small."

And seconds later, her prediction was confirmed. Through a hole in one of the rotted, crumbling walls walked, not a cop, not an adult...but a little boy.

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So, before you go, I want to let you know that I posted a companion one-shot to this, called 'Remember the Tinman', and I'd really love it if you could check it out! In the meantime, drop me a review, please! Thanks for reading :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

**A/N: **Right, so...it's an update! Not much to say, really. As usual, I thank you for your reviews and hope you'll leave another :) Enjoy!

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"Hi!" the boy said happily, smiling and coming forward. He was small, no older than three or four, and very thin. He didn't look like he'd eaten a good meal or had a bath for a while. It took me a second, but as he came nearer, I recognized him. He had been in the police holding room when we'd first arrived at the jail.

Arra and I exchanged glances as he came toward us. When his large brown eyes stared up at us expectantly, I hesitantly replied, "Hi," and smiled at the little boy. It seemed unlikely that he was a threat to us, but maybe he was somehow working for the police...no, that didn't seem right. They wouldn't have such a young child helping them catch murderers. But the vampaneze would.

The little boy had stopped in front of Arra and was looking up, waiting for her to return his greeting, but I could tell Arra was thinking the same thing as me. Her gaze had left the boy, deeming him a non-threat, but her senses were on high alert, her body tensed and ready for a confrontation with something bigger and more dangerous.

"Hello," the boy tried again, dragging the word out a little longer this time and pulling at the bottom of Arra's shirt.

She glanced down at him, and rather than ignore him again, knelt down so she was face-to-face with him. "Hello," she said, trying rather stiltedly to use a child-friendly voice. "Who are you?"

"Bear," the boy said, his smile getting wider by the second. He seemed to be at an age where standing still was a challenge.

"Bear?" Arra repeated, frowning at the unusual name, but he nodded happily. "Who sent you here, Bear?" Arra asked, still looking back and forth between any entrances to the office room we were in.

"My daddy," Bear told her, sitting down with his legs straight out in front of him and beginning to wiggle them. "He said he wanted to stay here till he felt better. He said he'd play a game with me if I was quiet, but then he fell asleep. Will you play with me?"

"He's asleep?" Arra said, standing up straight again. "Can you bring me to him?"

"Uh-huh!" Bear said chipperly. "But then will you play with me?"

Arra was distracted before she could answer. "Charna's guts!" she shouted, turning towards the window. My head whipped around, suddenly remembering the whole reason we were here. Mr. Crepsley and Vancha had still been scanning the prison roof seconds ago, but must have made their move while we were watching Bear. Both had disappeared from the rooftop.

Bear was watching us curiously, his head tilted to one side while we both stared at the window, speechless as we wondered what was happening.

"Darren," Arra said finally, turning to me. "Go with him," she gestured to Bear. "See who he's with. I'm going to stay and -."

She stopped talking, her brow furrowing a she looked away from the window and to the office door. Half a second later, an all-too-familiar face appeared, staggering in towards us from one of the doorways.

"Wha' the hell is all that racket?"

"You again?" I half groaned, half shouted, clapping a hand over my forehead. It was the drunk from the jail who had been bothering me and Vancha. The man was like a nasty flu.

"Who…?" Arra began, but the drunk began to stumble towards me and she stopped. He seemed to be sobering up; he was walking in a much straighter line than he had done last night. I wondered how much he'd had to drink to still be this wasted.

"Hey, buddy!" he said excitedly upon seeing me.

"Who the hell is he?" Arra asked me, looking from the window to the drunk, unsure of which crisis to focus her attention on.

"I...he..." I gestured noncommittally at the man.

"Frank Taylor," the drunk said, stepping towards Arra with his hand outstretched. She looked disdainfully at his wrinkled and filthy hand, then back up at his face. When he realized she wasn't shaking, he withdrew his hand with a shrug.

"We were in the cell together," I explained for Arra, and she nodded understandingly. I turned to the drunk, Frank. "What are you doing here?" I asked him, frowning.

"Well, I could ask you the same thing," he said, looking at me as though he thought that was a very smart answer.

"Okay," I nodded. "I'll tell you. We were wrongly accused of killing some people, but we were framed. We broke out because we did nothing wrong, but they'd never believe us. That's why we're here."

"Oh," he frowned, not having expected me to answer. Then he split his wrinkled face into a wide, rotted-toothed smile and said with more enthusiasm, "Me too. Yeah, that's it. I didn't do nothing wrong."

It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea what type of criminal we were dealing with; I would have assumed that he was in on a drunk driving charge or the like, but now that I thought of it, it could have been anything, really. . I vaguely remembered him beginning a drunken rant on what he'd been arrested for while Vancha and I were discussing our breakout, but at the time, I had had better things to think about.

"If you did nothing wrong, then why were you there?" Arra asked, crossing her arms as she wondered the same thing as me. Though she was speaking to Frank, her gaze was still fixed on the window - no sign of anything happening so far, at least not that she had said.

"See, his mother, Jess," he jerked his thumb at Bear, who was playing with the Velcro on his shoe, "She's supposed to have custody over him, but I got to thinking one night, and I says to myself, I says, 'Frankie boy, that broad ain't no better parent than you.' And so I took him. She wouldn'ta cared, neither, and didn't call the police or nothing, but then I got pulled over last night for driving after a couple drinks. Well, one thing lead to another, and they asked Bernard for his mother's name, and they called her up, and now she's callin' it kidnapping and they were keepin' me there till they could find someone to bring him to Jess. It's a bit far away, see." He finished by grumbling, "Stupid, good-for-nothin' bitch," under his breath.

"I see," I nodded. "And you escaped when we did, obviously?"

He nodded. "Damn most incredible thing I ever seen, the way Pajama Joe knocked that wall down. We've been up here hiding ever since, waiting for it to be dark so we could leave and the police won't see nothing. You see," he lowered his voice, "even though I'm as good of a dad as Jess, havin' a kid with you, it ain't exactly a night at the bar. So I'm bringin' him back, then I'll be off on my way again. Guess I'll have to stay away from the cops for a while, but no big deal, huh? What about you, where you off to? And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Darren," I told him, feeling no need to conceal my identity from a drunk. "She's Arra. We're waiting for a few of our friends to meet up with us, then we're doing the same thing as you, leaving the city." I regretted it the minute it came out of my mouth.

"Yeah?" he said, his face lighting up. "Well, then where you off to? If we're headed in the same direction, we could travel together. I'm 'in between' vehicles, as they say, since the cops took my hatchback, and I could use a lift."

"You know, I don't think..."

"With the way you escaped, I reckon you got some other talents. Put that together with my brains, we'd never be caught."

"Well..." I said, cringing at the thought. "I don't know. I don't know how that would work out. We travel on a bit of a strange schedule, and we don't have a car. We usually walk places."

"I can do that." His grin was as wide as before - so wide that his brown eyes were almost squinted shut.

I wracked my brain for any type of answer that could deter him, but before I could come up with anything, Arra had turned away from the window.

"They made it," she said, and there was a small hint of a smile on her face.

"What?" I ran to the window, but there was nothing to see. The jail looked just as it had minutes ago, with no Vancha, Mr. Crepsley, or Harkat anywhere in sight.

"I saw them," she explained, as Frank came up next to us, and Bear after him. "They came out the roof, the same way they went in, and took off this way." She met my anxious gaze and winked. "They got him."

I let out a massive sigh of relief and smiled. "But they couldn't have gotten in and out without the police noticing, could they?"

No sooner had the thought left my head than the all-too familiar sirens went off. Though Arra and I could both hear and see as the police cars began racing out onto the street, Frank and Bear had no idea what was going on.

"What is it? Who got outta where?" Frank asked, looking from me to Arra. "Wha's goin' on?"

We ignored him, keeping our ears and eyes peeled for any sign of Mr. Crepsley, Vancha, or Harkat. Sure enough, several seconds later, the sound of pounding footsteps on the rickety stairs filled the entire building. Arra and I spun away from the window, grinning at each other. They were moving quickly, and it wouldn't be long till they reached our floor.

"Arra?" Mr. Crepsley's voice called from somewhere nearby. "Darren?"

"Over here!" Arra called back.

Seconds later, they appeared, looking as though they'd done nothing more than gone for a relaxing walk. Arra and I hurried forward to greet them. I went to the Little Person first. Harkat was standing between Mr. Crepsley and Harkat, his mask secured over his mouth and his blue robes not so much as wrinkled. I grinned at him and ran forward to hug him, but before I could, he and Mr. Crepsley had taken a step backwards, their eyes growing wide. Vancha's eyes also bugged out of his head, but rather than back up in surprise, he let out an enormous groan and sunk to his knees.

"YOU!" he roared at Frank, who grinned stupidly back. Vancha rounded on me. "What is HE doing here?"

I shrugged wordlessly as Mr. Crepsley and Harkat exchanged confused looks.

"Frank," Arra said, gesturing at him with her hand, "and Bear," she pointed at the child, who was holding onto his father's pant leg, "are hiding from the cops. They, like us, were planning to leave the city tonight."

Vancha let out a disgruntled sniff at Frank. "Of all the places in the city you could have hidden, you choose the one place we come to?" Even at these words, Frank still seemed mostly unfazed. It seemed the ridiculous tooth-lacking smile was difficult to get off his face. Vancha turned to us. "Let's get out of here as soon as the streets clear. I -"

"You know what I think?" Frank interjected.

"No," Vancha said coldly, "and as you're not coming with us, I don't give a damn, either."

"I think we should leave during the day," Frank continued, as though oblivious to anything Vancha had said, though he was now directing his idea Mr. Crepsley and Arra. "They won't be expecting us to leave then."

"We? Us? What is he talking about?" Mr. Crepsley asked me, frowning.

"I'm coming with you," Frank answered like it was common sense.

"You sure as hell are not," Vancha snapped.

"Actually," Arra said slowly, and everyone turned to her in surprise, "I'm not sure if it would be such a bad idea." Mr. Crepsley's eyebrows were so raised that they nearly hit his hair line, and Harkat's jagged mouth was open.

At Arra's words, Vancha made a hacking sound. "It would," he assured her.

"Hear me out," she said, putting a hand up to silence him. She turned to look at Frank. "Give us a minute to speak in private."

"I don't-" Frank began to protest.

"Move it, or I don't plead your case," she threatened, and Frank grabbed Bear's hand and hurried from the room.

"Charna's guts, what use do we have for that hopeless drunk?" Vancha snapped at her as soon as their footsteps had grown faint.

"Several, actually," Arra said. "None of us will be able to go out around humans anywhere for a little while. We're not just murderers now, we're escaped convicts. They'll be looking for us everywhere. Frank, on the other hand..." she turned her palms to the ceiling and shrugged one shoulder. "No one really cares about him. They won't be putting his picture on the news. He could help us: go out during the day, get us supplies, deal with any humans we come across." When no one commented, she added, "He won't be with us forever - he's just trying to get rid of his kid and carry on with his life."

"And where exactly is he leaving his kid?" Vancha asked. "Humans seem to have a ridiculous aversion to leaving their children just anywhere."

"With the little boy's mother," I answered, seeing a raving rant about humans and their ways coming if I didn't intervene. "It's a long story."

"It can't be too far from here," Arra figured aloud. "And even if it means going out of our way, it might be worth it to have someone around who can help us for a little while. Even once we meet up with the Cirque du Freak, it will be hard to stay out of sight while this all blows over. It might help us in the long run if we kill time now."

Vancha considered her for a moment. "It sounds like a flimsy excuse to me, Sails," he said decidedly after a second. "I don't know what your reasoning is, but I highly doubt that's it. 'Killing time' isn't going to solve any of our problems. Hiding isn't difficult for us. We don't need a human babysitter. And the only thing worse than traveling with a useless excuse for a man is dragging around his child as well. But," he sighed, "that's my opinion. What do you three think?"

Mr. Crepsley shifted on his feet. "I, personally," he began, coughing uncomfortably, "do not feel we have much to gain in allowing them to accompany us." He looked at Arra apologetically. "I am sorry. I, unlike Vancha, do believe that every point you have made is valid, but...I do not think there is much good to come of it. I fear they will be more trouble than they are worth."

Arra shrugged her shoulders half-heartedly. "You are entitled to your opinion. Darren? You are a Prince. You and Vancha should be the ones to make the decision."

Vancha looked at me, eyebrows raised. "You know where I stand," he said shortly. "Though I think it will be a royal pain to travel with Hobo the drunk and Bozo the baby, I don't think there's danger to come of it. Should you decide that you would like human escorts," he sounded like a cat hacking up a hairball as he said it, "to trek us across the globe, then so be it; I will gladly wait for my opportunity to say 'I told you so'."

I looked back and forth between him and Arra. I hated making decisions. I opened my mouth, only to ask Harkat for his opinion, but before I could speak, Arra piped up.

"Desmond Tiny said to follow our hearts," she said softly. "My heart is telling me that travelling with them is the right decision."

"Well..." I said slowly, looking to Mr. Crepsley for help, but he shook his head, indicating that it was a decision I would have to make for myself. I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. Last time I had been put between Arra and Vancha, the choices were to go back and kill Vancha's brother and the vampaneze, or go against Arra's will and leave them be. I chose to leave the city, leave the vampaneze far behind, because it was what my heart had told me to do. 'Follow your heart' - such a simple phrase, yet it carried so much weight. The weight of destiny itself, it seemed.

Bearing Mr. Tiny's instructions and Arra's confession in mind, I nodded. "She's right," I said, a fair amount of confidence in my voice. "I think we should let them come with us."

Vancha nodded, his jaw set, while Arra smiled at me appreciatively. I smiled back at her, feeling somewhat relieved that we could be on our way again. Last time I had had to make a decision, it had been a choice between, what could have been, a vicious battle with a group of vampaneze and peace. This, this spat over whether or not to temporarily add two humans to our party of hunters, didn't seem like such an important decision after all.

How wrong I was.

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Thanks for reading - let me know how you liked it!


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

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Before breaking the news to Frank and Bear that we would be traveling with them, Mr. Crepsley suggested we create some sort of story. We could hardly tell them that we were vampires traveling to a freak show because of some destiny-related goose chase. Harkat came up with the idea that we could say we were going to stay with friends who travel. That way, if we wanted to change courses and ditch them, we would have a good excuse. In the end, everyone agreed, even Vancha, though he still seemed a little miffed and did so grudgingly.

"That man is like a flea," he said, as Mr. Crepsley went to fetch Frank and Bear from the other room. "I bet his kid's even worse."

"Mm, speaking of fleas," Arra said, "did you get your clothes?"

Vancha stared at her for a second, then his red face split into a smile. Without saying anything, he lifted the bag off the floor (it, along with any other possessions Vancha had salvaged, had been dropped to the floor upon seeing the humans) and made for the next room, already beginning to unzip his pajamas.

Before we left, we had to explain the ways we traveled to Frank. He had already accepted the fact that we were on the move at nighttime only, but the notion that we would not be using any public transportation put him out. It seemed a difficult concept for him to grasp that escaped convicts weren't generally welcomed on buses, trains, and taxis. Nonetheless, Frank insisted that he wanted to travel with us and promised to willing abide by our "weirdnesses", as he put it.

When he mentioned where Bear's mother lived, Arra recognized the city's name, and figured it would take no more than three weeks to reach it if we moved at a reasonable pace. That hardly seemed significant in the grand scheme of our mission. Taking a few weeks out to return a child to his mother was no big shake. Whether Frank and, especially, Bear, would be able to move at a vampire-acceptably reasonable pace was yet to be seen, but I didn't mention that.

Several hours later, three vampires, a half-vampire, a Little Person, a drunk, and a toddler - the oddest group to ever form - fled the city.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The first few hours were spent solely trying to get out of the city and find somewhere to hide out as morning approached. By the time we had, Frank had already broken his promise and was nagging us about traveling a couple hours into the day - several times.

"Look at it this way," he said, and all at once there were five groans; this was the fourth angle he was trying to get us to see from in order to convince us to leave the abandon garage we had made our shelter. "If we spent even just one more hour, it's an hour later we can sleep before we leave next time. Huh?" And he put his hands out as if waiting for us to bow down to his incredible logic.

"Yes," Mr. Crepsley said. "And if we rest now, it is one hour earlier that we will get to sleep to make up for the one we would be losing. It balances out."

Frank moved his mouth wordlessly for several seconds, then huffily sat down on an overturned bucket, folding his arms. It seemed the alcohol was mostly out of his system now, and it was making him grumpy. I hoped that meant he'd be quieter, though somehow I doubted it. "It's damn crowded in here," he grumbled.

It was true, the garage was a mess. Clutter towered atop junk that balanced on garbage. There was enough room for the seven of us, but only just.

For the most part, Bear had been silent on our way here, only speaking once to announce that he was tired and wanted a piggyback ride. Harkat had offered and even given Bear his best attempt at a kid-friendly smile, but Bear seemed terrified of the Little Person and instead ended up clinging to my back for half the walk. He was skinny and small for his age - which, Frank had told us, was actually five, despite the fact that he looked younger - so I hadn't minded. Other than that, Bear hadn't said a word or done much at all.

Now, however, he was beginning perk up and become as energetic as he had been when Arra and I first met him. As soon as we got Frank to stop whining, we had began searching the garage for old rugs, drop-cloths, or anything that would be able to serve as a comfortable bed for the night. It was a routine we were used to, dispersing and hunting around on our own. After watching us for a couple minutes, Bear crawled out of the tire he had been using as a fort and began to tug at the side of Arra's pants.

"What're you doing?" he asked.

"Looking for something soft," she told him distractedly.

"Oh. Can I help?" he asked, bouncing hopefully up on the balls of his feet.

"If you'd like," Arra said, dragging an old tool bench away from the wall.

"It's like a big...game of hide-and-...seek!" Harkat said kindly, and Bear edged nervously away from him. I gave Harkat a sympathetic shrug as I ripped the top half of a chest off, lock and all. The Little Person looked downcast by Bear's fear of him and pulled his blue hood up to hide his stitched-up face.

Regardless of what the scary grey person had said, Bear seemed thrilled at the prospect of helping. He immediately began to open the drawers in the tool bench Arra was moving, making it rattle when he closed them again.

"Careful," Arra warned, backing Bear up with a hand on his chest as a hammer tumbled down from the shaking shelves and almost hit him on the head. Bear seemed completely unaware of having been in any danger from the tool and continued to poke around until Arra finally set him to the much safer job of looking through a couple old boxes.

From his little corner, Frank murmured something about, "Tryin' to kill my damn kid...", which was ignored.

Vancha soon abandon the search, deciding he didn't care whether he slept on the dusty cement floor or not. He found a junk-free spot as far away from Frank as possible and then lay flat on the floor, twisting a couple times till his back let out four loud cracks. He yawned, scratched his armpit, and closed his eyes.

"Look what I found!" Bear said excitedly, picking something small and brown out of the box he was rifling through and closing his hands around it. "Look! Look!"

Harkat, Arra, Mr. Crepsley and I edged forward to see what had him so excited. Cupped inside his hands was a small, soft, squirming mouse. Vampires and mice got along just fine, and at any rate, none of us were freaked out by the fuzzy rodent. Frank dragged himself out of his sulking corner to come see, probably hopeful that his son had found beer or something, and he was a different story. Upon seeing the mouse he let out a string of profanities and shouted that the thing was going to bite Bear and give him rabies. Bear didn't seem to care or listen to his father's list of repercussions, and instead began to pet the top of the mouse's head with two fingers.

"Does he work?" Bear asked, looking up at Arra.

"What?" she asked, frowning.

"You said to find something soft. He's really soft. Pet him!"

And he held the petrified-stiff little mouse out to Arra. She looked down at it and, to humor Bear, or maybe just so he wouldn't ask again, she gave it a stroke behind the ears. "Very soft," she agreed. "But I meant something soft to sleep on. More like a blanket or a rug."

"Oh," Bear's little face fell. "Well, can I keep him anyway?"

We began to shrug, but Frank let out a holler. "Keep it? So it can infect us all? Gimme the filthy rat and I'll stomp on it, save us all!"

"No!" Bear wailed, pulling away as Frank made to grab at the mouse.

"Pipe down!" Vancha bellowed, throwing a rusty wrench that narrowly missed Frank's head.

Frank made another dive for the mouse, his shriveled hands outstretched. Mr. Crepsley and Harkat grabbed his arms to stop him as the mouse let out a terrified squeak and tried to run, only to be stopped by Bear grabbing its tail. "Please," Mr. Crepsley said irritatedly. "The mouse will not hurt him. I do not know if it would appreciate being kept as a pet, but it will certainly do no harm."

Frank seethed for several more seconds, then slouched off to return to his corner, muttering about 'his child', 'vermin', and 'kill us all'.

Bear lifted the mouse away from his palm by its little pink tail, un-velcroed one of the pockets in his too-big cargo pants, and dropped the mouse inside. He closed the top of the pocket again and placed a hand protectively over it. Seconds later, a twitching, whiskered nose appeared in the gap at the corner of the fabric. "I don't know what I'm going to name him," Bear said thoughtfully, seeming mostly unperturbed by his father's outburst. He shrugged one little shoulder. "I'll think of something."

As he began to wander off, Mr. Crepsley gave a sigh. "Children," he murmured, shaking his head. "How ever did I become involved with them?" I kicked him in the shin.

We watched as the little boy meandered through the garage, occasionally knocking over the odd bucket as he passed by. He almost lost his footing and tripped over Vancha, only to be swatted away like a mosquito. Harkat and I exchanged amused grins as Vancha grumbled under his breath.

I stifled a magnificent yawn. By now it was past sunrise, and we had had a thoroughly exhausting night. Blanket or no blanket, I was ready to sleep and too tired to hunt around any more for something to sleep on. I muttered half-hearted 'goodnight's to Mr. Crepsley, Harkat, and Arra (when you'd been on the road together for weeks - or was it months now? - things like saying goodnight quickly lost importance), found the least grimy patch of cement I could, and stretched out. Almost immediately, my eyes began to close.

I couldn't tell if it was seconds, minutes, or hours later that I felt a gentle, but persistent, poking between my ribs. I was about to shout at Vancha to go away, as it was usually he who liked to taunt the sleeping, but before my weary brain could make my mouth snap to, a little voice said, "Darren?"

I opened my eyes to see Bear looking down at me with a light smile on his face. The way he said 'Darren,' with his little-kid speech impediment reminded me of how Annie used to say my name when we were little.

"Yeah?" I asked him, my voice thicker than I had thought it would be - I really must have been asleep. I could see Harkat out of the corner of my eye, sitting just to my left and looking around, disoriented, as though he too had just been woken up.

"Here," Bear said. He pointed to a musty-smelling heap on the floor next to his feet. I squinted, rolling onto my side to see it better. It was a blanket. A dirty, dusty, yet very comfortable-looking blanket.

I smiled up at Bear. "You found one," I said, yawning, "that's great, Bear, thanks."

"I found three!" he said proudly. He pointed at the blanket near me and counted, "One." Then he pointed over to where Mr. Crepsley and Arra were already stretched out and asleep on a similar blanket, "Two." And finally, Bear pointed over to the corner Frank had claimed, "Three." Frank was sprawled out over a slightly less soft-looking drop cloth.

I was surprised; Mr. Crepsley, Arra, Harkat, and I had made solid efforts to find something comfortable to sleep on, and yet Bear was the one who had found not one, but three blankets. But my back was already sore from sleeping on the cold cement, and so I didn't wonder how he'd done it for long. "Is this one for me?" I asked, pulling at the corner of the blanket nearest to me and Bear.

"Yep," he nodded.

"Thanks," I told him, grinning and standing to spread it out over the ground. As soon as I was done, I laid back down. Harkat hesitantly edged onto the blanket beside me.

"Is it okay...if I sleep here, too?" he asked Bear.

Bear considered the Little Person a second, chewing nervously on one of his small fingernails. "Okay," he said finally.

"Thank you," Harkat smiled, then quickly closed his mouth to conceal his jagged teeth. He laid back and scratched his stitched-together neck, shifting a couple times to get comfortable.

I expected Bear to go over to Frank, but instead, he slowly lowered himself down beside me, laying on his stomach. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the mouse he had found earlier. The poor thing again tried to make a break for it, but was re-captured and placed under an overturned bucket for the night to avoid being crushed while Bear slept. Once the mouse was safe and sound, Bear pulled the corner of the blanket up as a make-shift cover. "G'night," he murmured, closing his eyes.

"Goodnight," I said softly in return, and before long, the little boy's breathing had evened out and he was fast asleep.

"He likes you," Harkat commented quietly. "Like a big...brother. He hates me."

"No, he doesn't," I said, adding weakly, "not much. As soon as he knows you won't eat him or anything, I'm sure he'll warm up to you." I'd met it sincerely, but after the words had left my mouth it struck me how funny and somewhat cruel they were at the same time.

Harkat snorted. "Thanks," he said, rolling his green eyes.

"Don't mention it," I grinned. "I'm glad we got you back, Harkat."

And soon, we too had joined Bear in the land of sleep.

* * *

**A/N: (at the end! Gasp!): **Thanks for reading, and pleeeaaase review! Tell me what you liked! Tell me what you hated! Tell me what you had for breakfast! Anything, just review! :D (Serious bonus points to you if you actually tell me what you had for breakfast, I'm starving :P).

Also, I'm declaring everything I'm writing as on-hold for a bit, due to the SATs I'm taking at the end of this month that I'm in a lousy, time-consuming prep class for that's actually making me study. That's not to say nothing will be updated (I technically declared my stuff on hold last week, and _voila_, here this is), but assume nothing will will be updated in the next month or so.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1.

* * *

"Let us go over this one more time, just to be sure that we are unwaveringly clear."

Frank swore and pounded his fist against the table. "This is the third bloody time, Larry. Get the hell on with it!"

"If I felt that I was getting through, I would have stopped after explanation one," Mr. Crepsley said, his voice twinged with aggravation. "And for the what-is-surely-greater-than-third time, it is _Larten_, not Larry."

We had been with Frank and Bear for three nights now and had decided it was time to send Frank on his first solo mission. So far he had proven himself to be completely useless, a hinderence more than a help. It seemed the longer he went without drinking, the grumpier he became. We hoped if we put him to use and sent him to buy us some water in town it would boost his spirits and he might become more agreeable. It was doubtful, but worth a shot.

After leaving the city where we had met Bear and Frank, we'd been making as good of time as we could expect while traveling with humans. We'd gotten far enough away by now that we weren't quite as fearful of being spotted. The vampires, Harkat, and I were still being careful, but for Frank and Bear to be recognized would be unlikely.

The day previous, we had taken shelter from the sun in an empty, but fully functional, house on the outskirts of a suburban town and now, at sundown, we were sending Frank out to buy a case of bottled water before we moved on. We were content drinking from faucets and streams, but Bear and Frank didn't seem too keen on it. Extra clean water could never hurt, at any rate, and it seemed to be a job impossible to screw up.

"You are going into the first water-selling store you come across," Mr. Crepsley told Frank sternly. "You will purchase a reasonably-priced, moderately sized case of water, pay with the currency I have given you, and return here. You will not start a conversation with anyone or anything you might happen to come across. You will not purchase any other items. You will not allow anyone to follow you back here. Is everything I have said clear?"

"Just gimme the damn money an' let me get the water," Frank snapped, attempting to snatch the wad of notes and coins from Mr. Crepsley's fist.

Mr. Crepsley reluctantly handed it over to Frank. "And be as fast as possible. It would be best to be back on the road in less than one hour."

Frank didn't reply, but instead pushed his chair away from the table, got up, and headed for the back door.

I'd been standing with my elbows resting on the kitchen counter, my chin set in my hands as I watched Mr. Crepsley and Frank's conversation. After Frank had banged the door shut and huffed off through the garden, I looked over at Mr. Crepsley, a smile threatening to form on my face despite the fact that he looked ready to tear the table to pieces.

"Think he'll screw it up?"

"I have no doubt he will," Mr. Crepsley grumbled, scratching his scar irritatedly. "Between you and me," he lowered his voice and beckoned me closer, "I believe Vancha was correct: having Frank along is almost guaranteeing glitches in our mission."

I listened for a moment to be sure I could still hear the running water of the shower upstairs, wanting to be sure Arra wouldn't appear around the corner at any moment. "It's only for a little while," I assured him, sitting down at the table. "You know that's what Arra wanted."

He sighed. "I know. That is why I have not requested we leave them behind one of these nights. Believe me, I wish to. But then, Arra has had a remarkable track record as far as intuition is concerned. Part of me feels that to doubt her would be foolish."

I nodded and started to reply, but the sound of the shower had stopped, and I could hear footsteps and the upstairs bathroom door opening. More footsteps, then the shower started again - probably Harkat. Save Vancha, we were all seizing the opportunity to take much-needed showers while in a house with running water. Thinking of the ever-filthy Prince, I frowned suddenly and looked at Mr. Crepsley. "Where's Vancha? I haven't seen him at all since I woke up."

Mr. Crepsley raised one shoulder apathetically. "Probably still asleep. He seems determined to spend as few hours with Frank as possible."

"I don't think so," I shook my head. "He fell asleep on the kitchen floor, remember? I don't think he would have moved in the middle of the day."

From the other room, we could hear the stairs creaking, and seconds later, Arra appeared in the kitchen door, her hair dripping wet and her right hand clamped around Bear's mouse. Somehow, the mouse, now going by the name of Milo, had managed to stick with us over the past few nights. He didn't seem to be particularly bothered that he was being toted around; though he had run off more times than we could count, he never went far, and Bear was always able to find him again. Likewise, if we saw Milo running around, we did our best to scoop him up and give him back to Bear - the new pet seemed to make the little boy happy.

"Almost stepped on him this time," Arra said, sitting between me and Mr. Crepsley at the table and handing Milo to me. She reached up and began to tie up her hair. "Bear's still asleep; I'll give him the mouse again when he wakes up, or he'll just run off again."

"Speaking of running off," I said, "have you seen Vancha yet this night?"

She shook her head. "He was sleeping down here, remember? I was upstairs like everyone else all night. Haven't been down till just now."

"But he never went upstairs?" I clarified.

"No, I would have heard him if he'd moved up in the middle of the day. I was awake half the day anyway. I'm sure he just went hunting."

"Mmm," I murmured in agreement, though I still thought it was strange.

Several minutes later, Harkat had joined us in the kitchen, and he too had no idea where Vancha was. I wasn't worried about the green-haired Prince - he was more than capable of taking care of himself - but I did have a growing suspicion. I wanted to share my theory, but lately there had been a bit of a strain on our camaraderie, mostly caused by Arra and Vancha, and if I voiced my suspicion, it would certainly not improve matters.

"Maybe I should go get Bear," I suggested. "We want to get going as soon as Frank gets back."

"I'll come with...you," Harkat offered, following me as I pushed my chair away from the table and started for the stairs. The Little Person was still making every effort to ingratiate himself to Bear, but the boy still seemed moderately petrified of him.

The second floor of the house indicated that usually, the residence was inhabited. There were four bedrooms and two bathrooms, all set up as though the house's owners were simply away. This had given us a hard-to-match level of comfort for the night, as we'd each had somewhere soft and warm to sleep (except for Vancha, who had chosen to sleep on the tile floor of the kitchen). Bear had immediately claimed the race-car shaped bed in the room at the top of the stairs, and no one denied him the thrill.

When Harkat and I entered his room, it seemed the days of little sleep had caught up with him, because Bear was curled up under the covers, his head off the pillow and his gentle, steady breaths blowing his hair off his eyes in a rhythm. He looked so comfortable that I felt bad having to wake him.

"Here," I whispered to Harkat, and I held out Milo the mouse to him. "You can give him to Bear after I've woken him up."

Harkat smiled and took the mouse from me and waited in the door.

"Bear?" I said quietly, not wanting to startle him. "Bear, wake up. We're leaving soon." I shook him gently on the shoulder, and he rolled onto his side facing me, his eyes lazily sliding open. He sat up and looked around, still dazed, then yawned and stretched.

"Hi," I said, smiling at him as he hopped out of the bed. It seemed he had helped himself to borrowing a pair of Spiderman pajamas from whomever usually occupied the room. They were too large for his small frame and made him appear even tinier than usual. "Harkat has Milo - he got away again."

Bear gave a nervous glance towards the door, where Harkat stood, holding the mouse out for him to see. He hesitantly approached Harkat with his hands outstretched, and the Little Person handed him the mouse as soon as he was in reach. "Thanks," Bear mumbled, closing his hands around the mouse. He turned to me. "I'm hungry."

"Let's go downstairs, I bet there's something to eat down there," I suggested, grinning warmly at him.

Harkat, Bear, and I proceeded downstairs, Bear almost tripping over the too-long pant legs more than once. On the way down, we passed Mr. Crepsley, who was heading in the opposite direction of us to go and take a shower. Once we'd returned to the kitchen and Bear had said his good-morning to Arra (even though technically it was far from morning), I began to search the cabinets for something for Bear to eat. It had been a long time since I'd been around such normal human food. Boxes of crackers, cereal, microwavable foods...none of them existed in a vampire's world. I decided of all the food I could find, I missed Fruit Loops the most, and so that ended up as breakfast for me and Bear. Harkat and Arra opted out, glancing at the multicolored cereal with looks of something between confusion, amusement, and disgust.

I hunted through the refrigerator for a carton of milk and set it on the table, busying myself with filling the bowls with cereal. It wasn't unusual that Bear didn't ask where his father was: it seemed he had little connection to Frank, and didn't seem any more reliant on his father than he was on us. I had a feeling he had never spent much time with his father before now, and, I gathered from the fact that he had yet to mentioned her, he hadn't spent much more with his mother. From what we could gather from Frank, it seemed Bear had spent a lot of time being bounced around between grandparents, various relatives, and foster families. He had, however, seemed to develop quite an attachment to Arra right off the bat. After I put his cereal down at the table, he dragged it over next to Arra's seat and climbed up to sit next to her, leaning against her to look at the newspaper she was glancing over while he started to eat.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the picture on the front page. It showed a man, his cuffed hands up to shield his face, being led into a nearby police car.

"Him?" Arra asked, pointing to man, and Bear nodded, his cereal-filled spoon dripping onto the table. "He was just sentenced to life in prison."

"Oh," Bear said, putting what was left of the spoonful in his mouth while he mulled it over. "What's that mean?"

"It means he's going to prison, and he's going stay there until he dies," she clarified, flipping the page disinterestedly.

Mr. Crepsley returned to the kitchen, his crop of hair already half-dried. He looked disdainfully into my cereal bowl as he passed by my chair and let out a, "Hurmph," then sat next to Harkat. Bear was still on about the picture.

"Why? Does he like prison?"

"No, I don't think he's going to like prison much," Arra said, flipping the page again and looking at the forecast. "I'd say he'll probably be beaten to a bloody pulp after a few months; these types of criminals usually are." Bear's big brown eyes bugged out. I saw Mr. Crepsley raise his eyebrows slightly.

"Why?" Bear asked again.

"Arra," Mr. Crepsley coughed, interrupting before she could answer. "Perhaps this is not a pleasant conversation, given Bear's age."

Arra regarded him over the top of the newspaper, then made a face and shrugged one shoulder. She folded up the newspaper and chucked it into a nearby basket, sliding her chair back and standing to look out the window. Bear finished his last bite of cereal and hurried to stand next to her. Reaching into a pocket in the front of his Spiderman jammies, he pulled out Milo and let the mouse crawl up onto his shoulder.

As I started to wash out the breakfast bowls, Mr. Crepsley began to grumble to Harkat. "What in the hell is taking that man so long? Is it not a relatively simple task, to retrieve a package of water?"

"For us, maybe...not. For him...probably," Harkat reasoned. "I'm sure that...he will be back soon, and...if not, we could always leave without...him. I am more...concerned with where Vancha is. We can't leave...without him."

"Hurmph," Mr. Crepsley said again, seemingly more content with complaining about Frank than the Prince.

Mr. Crepsley didn't have to be grouchy for much longer. A couple minutes later, we could hear an aggravatingly chipper whistling approaching, and seconds after, Frank appeared, meandering through the back garden as though returning from a leisurely stroll.

"He's back," I announced, and Harkat hurried to look out the window with me.

"Look at that," the Little Person said humorously. "He actually has the...water."

It was true. It seemed that by some miracle, Frank's first mission had been successful. As he walked through the back door, he continued whistling his tune between his teeth, and amazingly enough, the stench of alcohol was no stronger than it had been when he had left.

"I'm back!" he called unnecessarily, grinning like he had just won a gold medal. "Lookie-lookie!" He dumped the case of bottled water on the kitchen counter and put his hands out expectantly as he so often did. "Told'ya I wouldn't take long."

"Bravo," Mr. Crepsley said dryly.

Bear and Arra came into the kitchen and Frank ruffled Bear's hair. "Nothin' like mountain fresh water, Bernard," he told his son. Bear was still playing with Milo and did not seem to care about mountain fresh water.

"You're sure no one followed you?" Arra said. "And you didn't speak with anyone along the way?"

"Nope," Frank shook his head. "'Cept for the police officer who gave me the ride back here."

After we all stared at him for several long, incredulous seconds, he burst into a fit of cackling laughter. "What type o' idiot d'you think I am? I didn't talk to nobody and nobody talked to me. You shoulda seen the looks on your faces. Hardly nobody out an' about this time of night, anyway. Just a few guys in front of a bar with a hooker, and a couple of old ladies picking up medicine from the pharmacy."

He dropped into a nearby kitchen chair and ripped open the plastic covering the water.

"Do no make yourself overly comfortable," Mr. Crepsley said stiffly. "We are departing as soon as Vancha returns."

"Where's he got his purple arse off to?" Frank asked, trying to take a gulp of water while he spoke and spilling it down his front.

"We're not sure," Arra answered. "But he should be back soon."

"Something tells me he'll be here any minute now," I said, glancing suspiciously out the window. "And, speak of the devil, do you hear that?"

Sure as anything, the front door had just opened and slammed shut again, followed by a gruff, "It's me," so no one attacked. In his typical disheveled glory, Vancha stomped into the kitchen, a little trail of dirty footprints scuffing along behind.

"We've been waitin' for you for ages," Frank goaded him. Frank and Vancha had not become any better of friends, and what little conversation they shared included almost exclusively cutting or taunting dialogue.

"The hell you have," Vancha rolled his eyes.

"Frank returned from his - apparently successful - mission barely a minute before you returned from...wherever you were," Mr. Crepsley said. "In the spirit of making good time, I suggest we gather any belongings and depart at once."

We made quick work of hiding all evidence that we'd been in the house. By the time we'd finished, the homeowners would never know. Bear was disappointed that we wouldn't let him keep the Spiderman pajamas, but Harkat came up with the compromise that next time we sent Frank out, we'd have him get Bear newer, cooler pajamas (because, for as long as we'd been traveling with him, he'd had only the one set of clothes).

While it had seemed at first like the mission had given him a second wind, as soon as we hit the road, Frank's mood started to plummet again. We were moving too quickly, he said, or we were moving too slowly, or we would be stuck walking for years if we didn't call a cab soon. It was the same thing night after night. Even little Bear, who often ran to try and keep up with me or Arra, didn't complain like Frank. We were doing our best to block him out and talk over him.

Mr. Crepsley and Arra had taken the lead - Arra knew best where we were going, and so she was in charge of sending us in the right direction - and Bear was following close behind. Vancha, Harkat, and I were several paces behind, and Frank was far in the rear; he was well out of earshot of us, and Bear was far enough ahead that he would't be paying us attention anyway. Mr. Crepsley and Arra seemed engrossed in a conversation and far too consumed with each other to be listening to anything I could say. This would likely be my only chance to bring up something that had been nagging at me since we'd left earlier in the night.

"So, Vancha," I said casually, though by the way Harkat raised his eyebrows, I could tell he was already suspicious of my tone. "Where were you just after sunset, while Frank was out?"

"Feeding," he muttered gruffly, not taking his eyes off the chicken bone he was sharpening.

"Oh yeah?" I said. "Didn't you just drink from one of Mr. Crepsley's flasks two nights ago?"

"Yeah," he said, shrugging. "So what if I wanted some more? I wanted something fresh."

I gave Harkat a look before pressing on, though by the puzzled look he gave me, I didn't think the Little Person had caught on yet. "You know what?" I told Vancha pointedly. "I don't think you were feeding at all."

"So what was I doing, then?" he said with a tone of irritated amusement, finally looking up at me.

"I think you followed Frank."

Vancha paused, twirling the bone around his fingers. "You do, do you?"

"Yeah, I do."

He stared at me for several seconds, then gave a snort and hurled the bone, sending it soaring through the air and out of sight, probably out several thousand feet. "I'm not one for backing down when I've been caught in a lie," he said, and I was glad to hear he didn't sound particularly put-out. "You're not so dumb for a half-vampire, you know that, Darren Shan?"

I grinned at him. "So, what did you see? What did he do? How'd he screw up?"

Now Vancha seemed to look uncomfortable. His pace slowed and his mouth curved into an agitated frown. "He didn't. He did exactly what we wanted him to. Went to town, bought the water, came straight back. Didn't talk to a soul, didn't open his big fat mouth, didn't try to get himself a drink. Just did the damn job and came back." By the way Vancha said it, I could tell it was killing him that Frank had done what he was told.

"Well, that's a good...thing, isn't it?" Harkat said, observing Vancha's disgust. "That means we can...trust him more in the future."

"I'm never going to trust the sorry son of a bitch," Vancha growled. "You mark my word, we got lucky this time. He's not always going to be this well behaved."

"Maybe he won't. But maybe he will." I was playing devil's advocate: I too thought it unlikely that Frank would continue to carry out his missions without, at the very least, trying to buy himself a beer or two. But I didn't want to deny him the benefit of the doubt either.

"He won't," Vancha huffed.

"Why didn't you...say anything to us?" Harkat asked. "Why not tell us...that you were following...him?"

"I said I'd go along with whatever Darren decided," Vancha said. "And I don't go back on my word. But I had to see for myself what Frank was going to do."

"And if you'd caught him doing otherwise?" I asked.

"I'd have ratted his ass out and to hell with my word," he chuckled. "I'm not saying I'm not glad he did what he set out to do. I am. And I won't follow him again, at least not without telling you all first. But it won't last."

I shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe. We'll have to see, won't we?"

"We will," he nodded. "And I hope for all of our sakes that he proves me dead wrong."

* * *

**Another ending author's note!: **An update on this was far overdue! I hope you're all still with me! :)

On that topic, I really do ask that you please take a second to review. I know there are far more people reading this than those who usually review (Rowan Rawr, ferretgirlsz, Pickle, you guys have reviewed a lot - you rock! :D). I really truly do not need anything in depth, just a teeny little thing that tells me what you thought about it. It could be as simple as 'Terrible' or 'Great'. But surely, especially if you've favorited or alerted, there's _something _you like that you could express in a couple words. Please? :D Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you just favoriting or alerting, but a little review does go a long way. Thanks :)

Well, I've begged enough for one night :) Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

* * *

Vancha, Harkat and I agreed that it would be best if we kept Vancha's scheme between us. We agreed that it would cause unnecessary tension to what had already become a tense situation. I secretly wondered if Arra was still convinced that her inner sense that Frank and Bear should travel with us was correct, or if she now thought it had been a mistake. Her mood had become increasingly more on-edge, and part of me wondered if it had a lot to do with a desire to hide that she might have been mistaken. I very gently tried to breech the subject with Mr. Crepsley while she and Vancha were out feeding, but he shot it down, excusing it all away as stress, and, possibly, a side effect of the pregnancy.

"Vampiress or not," he'd said quietly, in an effort to not wake Frank or Bear, "I would imagine that hormones will take their toll on her as they do any female."

"Gods help us," Harkat had grumbled, and I snorted as he ducked out of the way of Mr. Crepsley's shove.

It seemed that there was an unspoken understanding that we let the humans in on as little of our mission as possible. We'd told them nothing that could lead to them finding out about the Cirque du Freak, vampires, or the baby. There was no need for them to know - with any luck, we'd part ways in a couple weeks and never face each other again. At least, I hoped we'd never face Frank again. Bear, I was starting to think, we would all miss.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Put the fire out, and let's get some rest," Arra said, calling the end of our dinnertime. "It's going to be sundown again before you know it."

"Goddamn sundown," Frank spat. "I'd like to see the sun rise every once in a while, you know."

"Sorry, didn't catch that," Arra said. "But you're sitting closest to the bucket of water. Fire. Out. Now."

Frank spitefully dumped the metal bucket - something we'd picked up the night before at a junkyard we'd passed through - over the flames, dousing them and letting off the sizzling and crackling like a roar of thunder. Once he'd emptied it of water, he chucked the bucket across the hillside cave we'd found and venomously eyed Milo the mouse, who, very near to Frank's foot, was nibbling on a berry Bear had found him.

We'd been traveling with Frank and Bear for a week now. Frank had been on three successful solo missions, with no one tailing him, and had come back very sober every time. I didn't think it would last much longer. Personally, I almost hoped he would start drinking again. It seemed sobriety was wreaking havoc on him. Every night he became more and more sullen, and at times downright vile. He'd lost all of the annoying traits he'd possessed when intoxicated and was now just a negative entity. He barked replies when spoken to and insulted anyone who attempted to confront him. After realizing that none of us were particularly phased by his irritability, he'd begun taking his anger out on Bear (usually through the form of Milo), something that we weren't standing for - especially Arra.

"Leave him," she snapped, catching a glimpse of the look in Frank's eye. "The mouse won't touch you if you don't touch it."

"I told you," Bear piped in, "He's nice, and he's soft. Softer than a puppy, or a kitty, or a fishy."

"Fish aren't soft," Frank muttered, laying down on his back. "They're wet an' slimy."

"Nuh-uh," Bear insisted, crawling over to my bag, where we were now keeping his brand new Incredibles pajamas, and pulling them out. "Fishies are soft. Bunnies are soft too. So are monkeys." He pulled his shirt over his head and quickly replaced it with his red, 'i' emblazoned shirt. Mr. Crepsley automatically reached out to help him - Bear always had trouble getting his arms through the sleeves.

Once Bear had finished putting his pajamas on, with a certain amount of assistance from me and Mr. Crepsley, and once he was content with his argument that fishies, bunnies, monkeys, giraffes, and elephants were soft (but not as soft as Milo), he tucked his little mouse safely into the handbag Harkat had found and given him as a mouse-house. He then borrowed one of Mr. Crepsley's red capes, covered himself up, and fell almost immediately asleep.

Soon after, Frank too had begun snoring, and it was only the hunters left awake. Usually we aimed for a few human-free minutes every day, to talk about things we couldn't say in front of Frank, or to drink some blood. The two of them seemed to be sound sleepers - we had yet to wake them, even when speaking at a normal volume.

"Did you see the size of the puddles we passes on the way here?" Arra began.

"By puddles, do you mean the small lakes I kept knocking Frank into?" Vancha asked dryly.

Arra made a face, though a smile threatened to appear behind it. "Yes," she sighed. "Those. They're because of all the melted snow and rain we've been getting. The rest of the way to Bear's mother's city is through low-lying lands; we're likely to encounter floods if we continue along in the direction I'd planned to travel. Ordinarily, that wouldn't be a problem, but with those two," she jerked her thumb at the sleeping forms of Bear and Frank, "I think we'll have to take a detour."

"What kind of a detour?" I asked.

"Not a long one," she explained. "It wouldn't add more than a week on to the trip time, and we'll end up walking through fewer swampy areas."

"You know this alternate route?" Vancha asked, and she nodded. "And there's no chance of..." he cleared his throat implicatively, "other interferences that prolong our time with the humans?"

Arra stared at him for a second. "What are you trying to say?" she asked sharply. "I didn't know it was going to be so wet and difficult to travel through here. If I had, I would have sent us the other way to begin with."

"Wasn't implying anything," Vancha grumbled, though his tone said otherwise. "But we've just doubled the remaining time we'll be spending with them."

Harkat and I exchanged worried glances. Arra and Vancha hadn't been speaking much lately, and Mr. Crepsley, Harkat, and I had not been encouraging it. Neither Vancha nor Arra was willing to admit that their opinion on Frank and Bear joining us might have been wrong, and neither was even-keeled enough to calmly discuss it. I thought they were both making far too much of it all; it seemed the majority of the tension on our party had stemmed from them, and I didn't see any need for it. The decision of traveling with Bear and Frank had never seemed like much of a big deal to me.

"With all due respect, Sire," Mr. Crepsley interrupted, hoping to intervene before things went farther. I saw Vancha roll his eyes. "She could not predict that we would be running into this problem. In the grand scheme of our journey, an extra week is hardly anything to speak of."

"I told you," Vancha grunted, his face in a sneer. "I wasn't implying anything."

"It sure sounded like you were," Arra growled.

"Hold on," Mr. Crepsley told her, putting a hand gently on her arm. "I think..."

She shook him off. "Stay out of this, Larten," she barked, hopping up to her feet. "Vancha's been asking for this for a week. I'm sick of seeing that look on his face."

Vancha too got to his feet, and there was nearly steam coming out of his ears and nose. "What look? The look of knowing that Darren made the wrong decision because of _you_?" He'd begun raising his voice, but a particularly loud snore form Frank brought the volume down again.

"Look, maybe we should all – " I began, starting to stand and putting my hands up, but Mr. Crepsley cut me off.

"Darren, quiet." He gave me a threatening look and I sunk back to the ground with a fearful grimace at Harkat. Mr. Crepsley rounded on Vancha. "I cannot believe you are trying to peg this whole thing on Arra!"

"I said to stay out of this," Arra snarled. She and Vancha both had the same dark expressions on their faces, and their eyes held a fiery craze I'd never seen blaze so strongly in either of them before.

"I am trying to help you," Mr. Crepsley said quietly, reaching out to put his hands on her shoulders to calm her, but she pushed him away.

"I don't need your help," she half-shouted, and Harkat and I hissed, "Shhh!" as Frank rolled over, grumbling in his sleep.

"Don't try and stand up for her, Larten," Vancha said angrily. "You know we made the wrong decision!"

"There is no basis for calling Darren's decision wrong!" Mr. Crepsley cried, outraged. "Nothing bad has happened since we have been with the humans, and, frankly, the way things have been going, I do not foresee anything bad happening...as a result of them, at any rate." He shot a feverish glare at Arra. "But if you wish for me to 'stay out of it', then so be it. But you are both acting irrationally. I do not know what has come over the pair of you."

"Shut up," Vancha snapped at him. "If you have such a problem with it, then get the hell out. It's what I'm going to do. No reason for me to hang around. The way I see it, we abandon our mission the minute we took them on. Let me know when the lot of you've got your priorities straight and I'll come back."

"If neither of you can pull it together, perhaps I will leave!" Mr. Crepsley barked.

"Yeah, why don't you?" Arra said venomously. "You're good at that."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Mr. Crepsley bellowed. "I thought -"

I'd become so engrossed in the escalating argument in front of me that I'd been completely oblivious to the unnerved Little Person next to me.

"Stop, stop...STOP IT!" Harkat interrupted, his voice louder and more urgent than I had ever heard it, and everyone turned to him. He was on his feet, his mask on the ground behind him, and his hands in the air. "Don't you see...what's happening? It's exactly like...Evanna said. Des Tiny wants us to...argue; he doesn't want...us to stick together and get along. If we...split up because...we're fighting, we will be...easier for him to pick off...one by one." Everyone's mouth clamped shut as we stared at him, his blue-robed body shaking as he glared at us all with his glowing green eyes. "We can't fight," he said softly. "Not now. Not so soon."

The three vampires glared at Harkat for several more long seconds, their breaths coming in heavy, sharp hisses.

Arra was the first to respond. She slumped to the ground, covering her face with her hands. "You're right, Harkat," she said. "Larten, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me." She reached out and took his hand apologetically, sincere regret in both of their eyes. He gave her a half-smile and clasped his hand around both of hers forgivingly.

"Destiny's what came over you," Vancha sighed, sitting back down himself. "Harkat's right: Evanna said it. He - Destiny - would twist our minds, make us argue. I apologize to you all - I was the one who started this."

We murmured our acceptances of Vancha and Arra's apologies, and Mr. Crepsley gave an apology of his own. We then glanced nervously around as though expecting Mr. Tiny to dive out at us, heart-shaped watch in hand, evilly controlling us like puppets. But no such thing happened. After giving a look at the incredibly still-sleeping Frank and Bear, Harkat asked, "You don't think...that means that he is here, or nearby...do you?"

"I don't think so," Vancha said. "But you never know."

"I don't think he's necessarily controlling our minds," Arra said slowly. "I don't think he's able to do that...if he could, I don't think I'd still be alive. Maybe none of us would. But what Evanna said, what she told us - _that _can control us; knowing that he wants us divided. We expect it to happen, and so it does."

"It is self-perpetuating," Mr. Crepsley said, and she nodded.

"Exactly."

"But," I said, frowning, "then, we also know it's self-prep...perp...whatever, so can't we stop it? We know that's what he wants, so now we know that we'll have to do everything we can to stop it from happening."

Vancha beamed at me. "Darren Shan," he said. "Vampires in general are known for a dislike of the young, but there is something to be said for one who can think so freely outside the box."

I decided to take that as a compliment and smile

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**A/N: **I'm incredibly proud of my quick update here (even if it's not quite considered quick by the usual standards, it's quick for me, damn it!)! Don't squelch my pride by not reviewing, please! Remember, anyone can review! :D Thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1. Or don't. I actually don't care.

* * *

Since the blow-up of three nights previous, our traveling had been much more relaxing. Everyone was keeping their mood in check, being careful to keep a level head. This excluded Frank, of course, but we'd made up our minds not to let him bother us quite as much. Our lifted morale was helping us make better time than we had before, and we were now resting in a seasonally vacant summer beach house which, despite being a bit cold and cramped, served as one of our more comfortable hide-outs. The town was a tourist hot-spot in the warm weather, but this time of year, everything was relatively slow.

Slow didn't mean quiet. Humans seemed to entirely incapable of carrying out the simplest task without causing a ruckus. I felt like Mr. Crepsley for thinking it, but it was true.

As had been happening ever since we'd been edging closer to human-dense areas, I found myself awake just after noontime, the roaring of cars making my ears hurt. It always took getting used to when you'd been traveling in quieter places and suddenly found yourself somewhere more public. I wondered how the vampires could stand it; after all, their ears were more super-sensitive than mine. I supposed their ability to block the noise out came simply from years of practice.

For a little while I stared up at the ceiling, trying to lull myself back to sleep with the swirling pattern of the plaster. When I heard the town's church bells strike one o'clock, I decided it was pointless and sat up, stretching. There were only two rooms in the cottage - a living-kitchen room, and a bedroom with an attached bathroom. Frank had immediately sworn he'd fight off anyone who tried to take the one bed from him. This was too funny on too many levels for us to argue with, and so we let him have it without an argument, just for humoring us. I'd found a soft bit of carpet and stretched out; it was certainly more comfortable than what I usually slept on nowadays.

I got to my feet and cracked my neck a couple times, then stepped over Harkat, who had been sleeping next to me, and Vancha, a few steps away. With nothing better to do, and sleep determinedly escaping me, I decided to go take a walk around the town. It seemed safe enough; there were so few people her that the chance of anyone recognizing me was next to nothing.

When my hand closed over the doorknob, it suddenly struck me that Bear had also been sleeping beside me, yet he hadn't been there when I'd gotten up. I reasoned that he'd probably moved in with Frank in the middle of the night, but that was unusual for him, and so I thought it best to go check, just in case. I crept quietly past the sofa Mr. Crepsley and Arra had both managed to fit on, back over Harkat and Vancha, past the small kitchen table, and through the doorway that led to the single bedroom. Belly down on the bed, Frank was fast asleep, snoring with his mouth hanging open, his covers kicked off. But as far as I could tell, Frank was the only one in the room. I did a quick check of the floors and the bathroom: no Bear anywhere in sight.

Now I was beginning to panic. That meant he wasn't in the house. Maybe he'd just gone outside, but something told me that he wouldn't stay within the small picket-fenced-in front garden.

I rushed back through the living room-kitchen, headed again for the door, then once again stopped. Though the town wasn't big, Bear would be found faster if there were two of us looking for him, and the faster we found him, the less apt harm was to come his way. I didn't want to wake everyone, there was no need for that, but who? Certainly not Frank: I'd end up having to find the both of them if I set him loose. My first choice would have been Arra, but as my hand hovered over her shoulder to tap her awake, I thought better of it. She and Mr. Crepsley alike would be burning in a matter of minutes out in the sun. That left Harkat and Vancha. Harkat would have been able to help me for longer - even Vancha's willingness to endure the severest of sunburn would render him incapable after an hour or so - but he didn't have the vampire senses. And so it was the green-haired Prince I shook on the shoulder.

"Wha'dyou want?" he grunted, pinching his face in and rolling onto his side.

"I need your help," I whispered. "Get up, quick."

He reluctantly got to his feet, then twisted sideways till his back cracked. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice more alert and awake than before.

"It's Bear," I told him quietly. "He's gone. I can't find him anywhere in here."

Vancha looked down at me as he wearily ran a hand over his face and through his hair. "So he went out."

"'So he went out'?" I repeated incredulously. "He's five. He doesn't just go in and out like an adult. He'll get lost; we need to find him before something bad happens to him."

"What's going to happen?" Vancha muttered. "Is he going to step off the face of the earth?"

I rolled my eyes. "Just help me find him, please," I said. "I don't want to wake the others if I don't have to, but you've got to help me. Mr. Crepsley and Arra couldn't be out in the sun for long, and Harkat doesn't have our senses, and Frank...well." I put my hands out to the sides to suggest I thought it unnecessary to point out why asking for Frank's help was useless.

"I'll burn in the sun too," Vancha reminded me, though he didn't make any motion to sit back down or imply he wouldn't help.

"Yeah, but you seem to take some sadistic pleasure in that."

He half grinned. "My skin is tougher; I could last longer than those two pansies," he jabbed a thump toward Mr. Crepsley and Arra.

"I know, I know," I hissed, eying Arra as she turned in her sleep, waiting for her eyes to snap open at any second. "So you can help me. I know you don't like Bear or Frank, but you wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them...to Bear, at least, right?"

"Aye," he nodded, "I wouldn't. I don't think anything bad has or will, but since you won't leave me be till he's found, I may as well help you."

"Thanks," I said, rolling my eyes at him again. "It's not a big town, and he can't have gone far. We shouldn't be long."

"Mmhm," he mumbled. "But let's not forget that we're trying not to be seen. Let's not blow our cover and go back to jail because we went out Bear searching."

"I know," I told him. "If we don't talk to anyone, I bet we'll be fine."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Five minutes after silently creeping from the house, being recognized seemed to become less and less of a concern. It was a chilly day, and not many were out. Because we were sticking to the shadows for Vancha, and because we weren't walking on the main sidewalks, we hardly passed anyone at all.

We'd discussed splitting up, but we'd quickly realized that it would only complicate matters, and so we were staying together. It wasn't going to be easy to find Bear; we couldn't really risk talking to anyone, and calling his name would draw too much attention to us. We were totally relying on our vampire eyes and ears to pick him out of all the other human racket.

"You know that everyone you didn't wake up is going to find out, right?" Vancha said, shielding his eyes as we crossed a space between the shadows of two tall houses.

"I know," I sighed. "And I'm sure they won't understand why I didn't wake them up. Especially Arra. She's going to be livid."

"Ah well," Vancha grinned. "It isn't as though you haven't faced the wrath of Arra before."

I smiled briefly, then grew serious again. "It'll be even worse if we can't find him. Then what do we do?"

"I'm sure we'll find him," Vancha assured me. "And if we don't, I'll bet he'll make it back to the house by dark."

"But he doesn't know where he is; he's as good a lost," I argued.

"Yes, but he does seem to have a knack for finding things." Vancha had a point. Whether it was Milo, a pair of socks in my bag, or Frank when he'd fallen behind while we were walking, Bear always seemed to find whatever or whoever he set his mind to.

"I guess you're right," I conceded. "But still, I'm worried."

Vancha opened his mouth to reply, but then shut it and came to a halt, smiling. "No need to be worried, what did I tell you?" He pointed across the street, where two middle-aged women were crouched down and talking to a little brown-haired boy - our little brown-haired boy.

I let out a laughing sigh of relief. "Wait here," I told Vancha hurriedly, and he shrunk back into the shadows again, so as not to be seen unnecessarily by any humans. I bolted across the street faster than any non-vampire could have done, but the people around were too absorbed in their own errands or purposes to notice.

"We need to help get you back with your mom or dad, okay?" one of the ladies was telling Bear kindly as she reached into her purse. "Do you know one of their phone numbers?"

"My daddy doesn't have a phone," Bear said good-naturedly, smiling his tiny smile with all the spaces between his teeth. "He threw it at the wall because he couldn't turn it off and it broke. My mommy has a phone, but I don't know what the number is." He slipped a hand into one of his twitching pockets, where I guessed Milo was maintaining his constant struggle to get out..

"Okay," the other woman sighed, brushing her hair back. "Well, do you have any idea where your parents are now?"

"Daddy's asleep," Bear said. "And I don't know where Mommy is."

At this point I'd come up behind him, just out of his view, but the women saw me as I neared and eyed me carefully. "Bear!" I called, and he spun around, grinning.

"Darren!" he said excitedly. "I found Milo! He ran away again, and I found him!"

"That's great Bear, but you scared me to death," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"You know him?" one of the woman asked, though they were both smiling, seemingly convinced that Bear was now safe and sound.

"Yes," I nodded. "He's my little brother."

"No I'm not," Bear contradicted, and I inwardly cursed little kids and their honesty.

"Well, you're like my brother," I said, struggling to keep the wince off my face. "But come on, mom and dad are worried about you."

"Wha-?" he started, but I put a hand on his back and started to usher him away before I started to look suspicious.

"Thanks!" I shouted over my shoulder to the two ladies as I hurried Bear away, though both were looking at each other with confusion. I grabbed Bear's hand and hurried him across the street to where Vancha was hiding. "Okay, Bear," I said patiently, motioning for Vancha to come out of the shadows as we walked. "That wasn't good, all right?"

"What? Why?" he asked, his voice sounding so sweet and innocent that I couldn't bear to be mad at him.

"Because...you can't just go off like that," I said. "We were worried."

"But I had to find Milo!" he said. "I was gonna come back!"

"I know, but you could have gotten lost," I told him. "Or you could have met some really bad people."

"Nuh-uh," he said. "I know how to get back. Watch. We have to go this way," he pointed to the left, "then that way," he pointed straight and to the right, "then that way," left again, "then that way," to the right.

I tried to work out whether or not that was actually the way back, and for all intents and purposes, it seemed Bear was right.

"But still," I started again, but he didn't seem to be listening. Milo had crawled out of his pocket and made a break down the road, and Bear took off to catch up with him. I turned to Vancha and sighed distressedly. "Can you back me up, here?" I asked him, but he only smiled and shook his head.

We spent the rest of the trip back to the house following the sprinting Bear, who, once having caught his mouse, had continued to run. Miraculously, but not surprisingly, he had been able to find his way back without any directions from us. Unfortunately, this meant that we didn't have a chance to tell him to be quiet when he went into the house. In the theme of five year olds everywhere, he seemed to do everything with an extra amount of boom, crash, and clatter. He threw the front door open and let it slam shut behind him, then, as Vancha and I swung the door open again, ready to hiss at him to keep it down and not wake the other, he leapt over Mr. Crepsley and Arra, skidded to a stop in front of Harkat, then knocked into a table and tipped it over.

If the banging door hadn't been enough, the leap, the skid, and the bang of the wood hitting the floor did the trick, and the collaborative noises woke everyone with a start. Had Vancha and I not been standing in the doorway, Vancha sporting very red and flaky skin, we could have partially lied our way out (Bear allowing, of course). But a quick look at us started the questions.

"What the HELL are you doing?" Mr. Crepsley snapped, massaging his ribs where Arra had accidentally elbowed him when startled.

"Wha's goin' on?" Frank grumbled, slumping out of the bedroom with ruffled hair and squinted eyes.

"Why were you outside in broad daylight?" Arra demanded.

"Why did you...have to be so...loud?" Harkat moaned.

I looked up at Vancha and grimaced as we nonverbally duked out who got the lucky job of telling the story. Bear beat either of us two it. He started right from when he'd woken up and found Milo gone (again), and carried the story all the way through to the present, ending excitedly with, "And then I started telling the story!".

Then it was my turn, and I had no element of cute endearingness to soften the fact that Vancha and I had known Bear was missing and not told anyone. I was honest, explained my reasoning and how I hadn't wanted to wake anyone unnecessarily. Frank seemed indifferent to both stories, only muttering that he wanted to go back to bed, and doing so after a decent period of complaining.

Mr. Crepsley and Arra gave us the expected amount of grief, though Mr. Crepsley soon turn his attention to Bear, who was cuddled up on the floor again with a cape pulled up over his head.

"You should not have left the house, Bear," Mr. Crepsley said to the covered heap that was Bear. "It was not safe. It is important that you heed my warning very seriously. There are both extremely dangerous people and extremely dangerous things in this world, many of which you are far too young to understand. Being by oneself at any age poses certain risks, and those risks increase dramatically at your young age. It is imperative that, in the future, you awaken one of us before going off by yourself, whatever the situation. Do I make myself clear?"

Harkat and I gave each other bemused looks while I was sure I heard Vancha stifle a snicker. Mr. Crepsley gave Bear several seconds to answer, which were filled with nothing but silence. "Bear, do you understand?" he tried for a second time, but again, no response. "Bear, you are being very rude," he said finally as Harkat lifted the cape off of Bear's face.

"He's fast asleep," the Little Person announced, and Vancha began to roar with laughter. Mr. Crepsley's face turned an aggravated red.

"I do not understand what is so funny," he sniffed. "As the only one with experience towards raising a child, I find it my duty to educate Bear on matters such as these."

"Experience raising a child?" I chuckled. "You mean me? Making a kid your assistant at twelve doesn't constitute as child-raising experience."

"Perhaps not," he huffed, "but I am the only one who possesses parenting experience whatsoever. It is not so unreasonable that I should try and point out the error of Bear's ways to him. In the future, it might prevent us from happenings like these. We are lucky this did not end badly, for him or for us. We -."

"Shhh," Arra told him, putting a hand on his chest and quieting him down immediately. "You are far too worked up for such an hour, Larten."

"I...I..." he tried weakly, but Vancha, Harkat and I had already begun to settle back in, sensing that Arra had successfully ended his rant. She raised her eyebrows at Mr. Crepsley expectantly as he blubbered, then gently pushed him back till he was lying on the couch. "You are right."

"Of course I am," she said wearily, laying back down beside him.

"But that runaway mouse is going to be the end of him, I tell you," he continued. "I..."

Arra turned to give him a silencing kiss, then took his hand and draped his arm back over her shoulders, which dealt the final pacifying blow. "I have a solution to the problem," she said. "But not for today. Please, go back to sleep."

And as usual, he gave her a kiss on the top of the head and willingly obliged.

"You know, I give her a lot of crap," Vancha murmured from nearby on the floor, "but she's not bad to have around, even if just to manage Larten."

And from across the room, Arra hurled a pillow at him.

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**A/N: **I'm on a freakin' roll :D I was SO happy, because I got four reviews on the last chapter! That's a lot compared to what I've been getting on this, and I really appreciate it :) But (and not to whine and be greedy, just saying) I do remember a time, back in the day, when 'The Fourth Hunter' could get 5-7 reviews on one chapter, and I know enough people read this that it could happen again. Want to be part of a reviewing movement? I want you to :D Go ahead, leave a teeny little review to kick it off and let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading! :)

Also, someone (and I'm guessing it's the same person) has been reviewing a few of my stories completely anonymously. So, since I have no way to thank you in person, whoever you are: "Thank you!" :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1.

* * *

Arra's solutions to Bear's problem with Milo was the most logical solution to anything I'd heard in a while: buy the mouse a traveling cage. Frank protested the idea of going into a pet store, but we persisted, and eventually convinced him that if he cared at all for his son's safety, he should comply.

As usual, we sent him out just after sundown, around six-thirty, with the instructions to return as quickly as possible. We assumed that he would take a bit longer than usual, but didn't expect him to be too long. How hard could it be to find a mouse cage?

While we waited for him to return, we made ourselves comfortable in the cottage's small living room. For the most part, we waited in silence, except for Bear, who was happily humming a very monotonous, and probably self-invented, song while he built a maze for Milo with various household objects. Vancha had slunk out just after Frank with Mr. Crepsley's phials to re-fill them, as our stock of blood had gotten low. He'd assured us he'd both avoid Frank and return before him, so as to avoid any awkward questions involving the blood-filled glass containers.

Bear was beginning to trust Harkat. The Little Person had found him a couple of paper cups under the kitchen sink, and Bear had agreed to let him help add them to the maze. I'd passed on aiding in construction; after spending a decent amount of the day trying to find Bear, I was even more tired than usual. Arra too seemed like she'd have rather been asleep; as she leaned against Mr. Crepsley's chest, her only movements were the occasional blinks of her eyes.

"I wonder if I gave him enough money," Mr. Crepsley thought out loud as he absently stroked Arra's shoulder about half an hour after Frank had left.

"You gave him plenty," I assured him. "He could buy two with what you gave him." When he still looked doubtful, I grinned guiltily and added, "When I stole Madam Octa, I looked at some small animal cages, and they were pretty cheap."

He gave something between a chuckle and a snort. A faraway look hazed into his eyes, and I knew he was thinking about his beloved spider. I could tell by the way Arra closed her eyes and shook her head ever so slightly that she knew too.

I yawned and leaned back against the wall, checking the clock impatiently.

"I want to put a tunnel in right there," Bear was telling Harkat, as he pointed to the middle of what had become a very convoluted maze.

"You can cut out...the bottom of the cup," Harkat suggested. "That would make a good tunnel."

"Here," Arra piped in, and she reached a hand off the sofa and down into her traveling bag. "Hang on, it's in here somewhere..." she shuffled her hand around inside for a moment, then withdrew a shiny knife. She gently chucked it on the ground next to Bear, who immediately snatched it up and began hacking at the bottom of the cup.

Arra had relaxed back against Mr. Crepsley, but my mentor looked anything but able to relax. As Bear narrowly missed slicing his leg, then almost took off Harkat's finger, Mr. Crepsley winced. When the knife finally did make a solid cut in the cup, only to continue down and get stuck in to sole of Bear's shoe, he'd seen enough. He carefully slid out from behind Arra and off the sofa. Before Bear could do any more damage, Mr. Crepsley took the knife with a muttered, "Let me," and chopped the bottom of the cup on in one clean slice. He handed the cup back to Bear, who looked a little disappointed that he hadn't gotten to do it himself, then went back to the sofa with Arra, who was frowning. Noticing the look on her face, he shifted uncomfortably. "Perhaps I can have a word with you?" Mr. Crepsley said quietly. "In private."

When she only raised her eyebrows and made no motion to get up, Mr. Crepsley shrugged one shoulder. "All right then," he sighed, and I could tell from the way his scratched nervously at the lower half of his scar that whatever he had to say had been bugging him for a little while. My first thought, my fear, was that this could be the beginning of another argument, but when he began to speak, it was clear that he was trying to avoid exactly that.

"I have some...concerns," he said. "I suppose you could say they're concerns about the future."

"Oh?" Arra said, turning over to face him.

I tried to busy myself with straighting out Bear's maze and make it less obvious that I was listening to their conversation, and Harkat kept fidgeting with the same plastic fork.

"Well, as I have said before," Mr. Crepsley said, "I am, of course, the only one with any type of parenting experience." I snickered into my shoulder; this again? He continued, "But as you know," he shot a furtive glance at Bear to see if the little boy was listening, "it would be something that will come in handy to both of us at some point in the future."

Arra didn't look like she was overly thrilled with where this conversation was going. "What do you mean?" she asked flatly.

"Well," Mr. Crepsley said, "while we have Bear with us, it gives us all a good chance to...practice, I suppose."

"You don't think I'll be a good parent?" Arra asked, surprisingly calmly.

"Of course I do," Mr. Crepsley said quickly. "But even the best can improve. For example, giving a knife to a five year old is, possibly, maybe -" he was wilting under the gaze of her grey eyes "-not a very good idea. Or giving him the details of a gory crime, as you very nearly did the other day, or..."

Arra raised one eyebrow at him and whatever bit of courage and assertiveness he'd been trying to maintain immediately vanished. "I see no point in coddling him," she said. "Why coddle any child? So the harshness and danger in life can hit them all at once?"

"I-I was not suggesting that...well, as I mentioned before," he said slowly, clinging onto a composed tone, "this might be better discussed between the two of us at some other point, in private."

Arra didn't respond, but only sat up and ran her hands through her hair. "Bear," she said, and he instantly looked up from the maze, "come here." She beckoned him over and he came to stand expectantly in front of her. "Did you have anything to eat yet this night?"

"Nuh-uh," he shook his head.

"Then let's get you something," she said, pushing herself off the sofa. "Good thing I thought of it, we can't have you going hungry, can we?" She gave Mr. Crepsley something between a triumphant and amused face and led the way over to the refrigerator.

I looked up and gave my distressed-looking mentor a sympathetic grin, which he half-heartedly returned.

The front door banged open and Vancha walked inside, his hands full of blood-filled flasks. "Breakfast, anyone?" he announced, grinning, then quickly hid them behind his back when Bear turned to look at him. As soon as Bear had turned again, the prince handed the blood to Mr. Crepsley then flopped down onto the floor, flattening a quarter of the maze. "The stinker back yet?" he asked.

"No," Mr. Crepsley told him with a sigh. "It would appear that Frank is still searching for a mouse cage."

Vancha gave a satisfied grunt. "Told you I'd beat him back."

"Yes, well, hopefully only just," Arra said from the kitchen table where she was opening a jar of jam for Bear's toast."It's not getting any earlier."

But Arra's hopes went unfulfilled. Another half hour passed and Frank still hadn't returned. Bear had finished his breakfast and was back to his maze, after throwing what threatened to turn into a tantrum when he discovered its Vancha-caused damage. Half an hour after that, still no Frank. Vancha, who, like me, hadn't slept much the day before, laid down face first on the floor and plugged his ears while the rest of us watched TV. Bear had climbed onto the couch and managed to wedge himself between Mr. Crepsley and Arra, and his blinks were becoming more drawn out and sleepy as time went on.

Two hours after Frank had left, we knew something was wrong. His task shouldn't, and wouldn't, have taken this long unless something had happened. At this time, any store selling a mouse cage would be surely be closed anyway. Whether Frank had finally cracked and gotten sidetracked on his mission or something bad had happened, no fault of his, we didn't know, but Mr. Crepsley decided that he wouldn't sit around and wait any longer. With a knife in his hand, just in case, he set off, swearing he'd come back with Frank one way or another.

I could see in Vancha's face that this was a moment he'd been waiting for, though he said nothing and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to keep a poker face. There was a slight possibility that Frank had been detained by some fault other than his own, but it seemed doubtful.

"I'm going to make sure I've got all my stuff," I announced after a few minutes, though I knew I did (I almost never took anything out of my bag except changes of clothes). "Harkat, want to help me?"

Harkat nodded and climbed to his feet, following me into the single bedroom where we'd stored our bags to make more space in the one other room in the cottage.

"So," Harkat whispered, "what do you think?"

"About Frank?" I said, equally as softly, "I almost hope he has run into some small disaster rather than finally succumbing to some sort of... distraction."

"I do too," the Little Person agreed. "I think it would create a...whole new batch of tension if he has. I was enjoying...having things back to normal...these last few days."

"So was I," I said, pulling my bag open, figuring I might as well do what I'd said I'd come in to do. "And what if he's just up and disappeared? What would we do with Bear? We don't know exactly where his mother lives, and even if we did, what would we tell her when we show up at the doorstep with her son?"

"Not to mention there's...no telling what Frank can do...or say," Harkat added. "You don't think he'd be...stupid enough to rat us...out, do you? Maybe we made him angry...and he's gone to tell the police...about us?"

"I don't know..." I said. "He'd be risking himself, but he might not be smart enough to put that together." We pondered over that for a moment, and I gave a nervous glance out the window, half expecting to see a troop of police trekking up the front lawn. Of course, no such thing happened. "Maybe we should tell the others to be ready to leave quickly, just in case?" I said. "Even if Mr. Crepsley saw Frank or the police and found out, he would be smart and not get captured, but he also might not be able to warn us in time."

"Assuming worst case scenario...that Frank had told the cops, you mean?" Harkat said, and I nodded.

"Yeah. Come on." I led the back to the living room, where everything was the same as it had been several minutes ago. I cleared my throat to gain the attention of Arra and Vancha. Both looked around at me, though neither seemed to expect us to say anything urgent. "I think we should all get ready to leave," I told them.

"Without Larten?" Vancha raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because," I started to explain, choosing my words carefully so Bear wouldn't be able to decipher what I was saying, "Harkat and I think that the police might be tipped off that we're here by _someone._" It wasn't my best-worded explanation, but it would do.

"I thought of that," Arra said. "I think it's unlikely. I don't think he'd do that, not when he begged us to take him along."

"But he might have changed his mind," I countered. "There's no telling what goes on in there." I tapped the side of my head. "If we did have to leave, right now, would you be ready? Because if we hear or see anyone other than Mr. Crepsley and Frank coming near, we should get out fast."

Vancha pulled himself off the floor. "I don't have anything to get ready," he said. "If I had it my way, I'd go now; I'm getting bloody tired of waiting."

"I'd be ready," Arra said, giving the room a quick once-over with her eyes. "But I'm not leaving without Larten. For all we know, Frank might have fallen in a hole and broken his leg, and by the time Larten drags him back here we'd be gone? I'm not doing that."

"Daddy broke his leg?" Bear asked, looking up at Arra quizzically.

"No," she said hurriedly, putting a hand on his little shoulder. "We don't know where he is." She turned back to us and said, "If you want to go, I can't stop you. But I don't want to leave unless we absolutely have to."

The more I thought about the possibility of police closing in and re-capturing us, the more it worried me. My exhaustion might have been causing my mind to run a little wild, but suddenly, images of of being chained into a cell, with guards all around and no way to escape, popped into my head. We weren't only thought to be murderers now; we were escaped convicts, who they'd stop at nothing to get off the streets. We could fight any number of humans close-range, but if they had guns and were willing to shoot... My imagination almost got the best of me, and I very nearly pulled rank and told Arra that we were all leaving, her included, before any of the many terrifying images in my head became reality. But then the logical side of my brain took over. She was right - it was a slim chance that Frank had told the police anything in the first place. And if he had, Mr. Crepsley - out alone trying to find Frank and potentially walking into a trap - would be in more danger than any of us.

"I think -," Harkat started to say, but Vancha held up a hand to silence him.

"Shh," the green-haired prince whispered, and everyone fell quiet and listened.

We could hear a familiar voice coming from outside the house, probably moderately near to the door. It was the voice of an irate Mr. Crepsley.

Harkat and I smiled slightly at each other in relief. Before anyone could make out the words my mentor was saying, the front door swung open and Mr. Crepsley walked in, dragging behind him a very wobbly, stupidly grinning Frank. After kicking the door shut, Mr. Crepsley gave Frank a shove and the man stumbled forwards, before tripping and face-planting on the floor.

Vancha groaned and covered his face with his hands as the obviously drunk Frank shakily got to his feet, giggling like a little girl.

"What happened?" Arra asked solemnly, going over to stand next to the fuming Mr. Crepsley.

"I searched all over the town for him," Mr. Crepsley seethed. "And on my second run through the town center, who did I see wandering out of the bar but this useless waste of flesh?"

Vancha stepped forward and grabbed Frank by the front of his jacket. Frank's ridiculous smile stayed plastered to his mouth even as Vancha spun him around and pinned him to the wall.

"Vancha!" I stopped him quickly, motioning at Bear, who had jumped back at Vancha's outburst and was nervously holding onto a table leg.

"Take him outside, then," Vancha roared. "Go on, get him out of here!"

Harkat hurriedly stepped forward and began to usher Bear out of the room and to the door, which he quickly opened. Harkat led Bear out of the house, despite the boy's protests. Vancha rounded on Frank once again. "What happened?" he snapped, moving his face just inches in front of Frank's.

"Wha' d'you mean?" Frank blubbered, his eyes drifting around in the general area of Vancha.

"I mean why are you drunk? You know what we told you to do. You know what we told you _not _to do."

"I dunno wha' yer talkin' about," Frank slurred, twirling his thinning hair through his fingers. "A couple'a guys an' some chick offered to buy my a drink, and I thought to myself, 'Frankie boy, you's earned you a mug'. So I went in an' shot the breeze an' had a couple. Wha's it to you? Dunno wha's the big d - hic - deal."

Vancha gave a disgusted grunt and released Frank, letting him slide down the wall onto the ground. He turned to Mr. Crepsley. "You found him wandering out of the bar? Then what?"

"Then I grabbed his arm and brought him straight back here," Mr. Crepsley said. "I would assume he had been in there the whole time we were waiting for him."

"Now what?" I asked miserably, plunking down on the couch and watching as Frank gleefully peeled up the corner of the carpet. Frank's terrible mood had been one thing to put up with, but now...I found myself starting to seriously regret my decision to allow them to travel with us for the first time.

"I say we leave them here," Vancha barked. "He had his chance, he was doing well, but he blew it. We can't travel with him like this."

"Like wha'?" Frank asked. We ignored him.

"We can't leave Bear here," Arra protested. "If we leave Frank, we should at least still bring Bear back to him mother."

"What're you talking' about?" Frank asked, pushing himself to his feet. "I'm still comin' with ya'."

"You most certainly are not," Vancha snarled.

I covered my eyes with my hand. I'd just started getting used to having peace once again among the hunters, and now this. We'd done so well, agreed to disagree, gotten along, and one night of Frank's drinking had put us back where we'd started: arguing and divided.

"Wait," Mr. Crepsley said, holding up a hand. "Erred as Frank's ways were, it would not hurt if we allowed him to follow us. If he falls behind, then so be it. We will not wait for him, or go back to find him, any longer. But then we take on the responsibility of returning Bear."

"If that's what we're doing, we need to get a move on," Arra said, looking out the window. "If we want to get out of here and make it somewhere else we can hide by sunup, we have to leave now."

Vancha looked livid. "So you are all happy to continue on as we have been, now that he has proven himself untrustworthy?" When no one answered, he shook his head and spat on the ground at Frank's feet. "This is beyond idiotic. If I wasn't hell-bent on disobeying the wishes of Desmond Tiny, I would leave this moment and let you all find out for yourselves just how bad a decision you are making. But I won't. I'll follow along." He lowered his voice darkly and gave Frank a venomous glare. "But you know where I stand."

"We're very clear," Arra said coldly. "Let's go."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

By some incredible act of the Vampire Gods (or maybe the devil, it was hard to tell), Frank did his fair share of keeping up for our small bit of travelling that night. If there was one thing to say, being drunk certainly improved his mood. He was both useless and incredibly annoying when drunk, but he also proved much more agreeable - for the most part. Though his grumpiness was gone, there was a hint of volatility that hadn't existed before. Shortly into our walk, Harkat had accidentally knocked into him when Frank had stopped for the umpteenth time to admire the sky. This had set off an explosion of anger from Frank, who'd begun shouting at Harkat, asking what his problem was, what was he playing at, on and on until finally Arra and Mr. Crepsley were able to drag him away for long enough to cool him down. We made a point to keep him in our sights when near Harkat for the rest of the night.

As the night began to draw to a close, Mr. Crepsley drifted back to walk next to me. "We never did get that cage for Bear's mouse."

"I guess we'll get it somewhere else," I said. "I can go get it. Maybe we shouldn't trust Frank for a while; at least until he's sobered up again.

Mr. Crepsley sighed and massaged his temples, looking again as he had before, as though tension was getting the better of him. "We should have left Frank while we had a chance. I do not know what I was thinking."

I shrugged one shoulder, not feeling any need to agree or disagree with him.

"I want so much to agree with Arra's wishes," he nodded his head towards Arra, who was in front of us, talking to Harkat, "but this...I see no gain for us in this. She said she feels it is destiny, but I cannot see how."

Up ahead of us, Vancha looked up at the tree line and temporarily halted our conversation. "Will we be there soon?" he asked, his voice forcedly cordial. "I can see the sun coming up."

"About an hour left," Arra said. "Less, if we start moving faster."

"Faster?" Bear said. He hadn't said much all night and had only followed along behind Arra, occasionally tugging on her sleeve to ask a question, or to tell her something unimportant. "But I'm tired," he dragged the last word out with the sleepy whining tone that was only cute if you were five. Bear was a trooper - he almost never complained, and always tried his best to keep up with us. I suspected he too was weary from his day looking for Milo. "I don't want to walk anymore," he said, wrapping his arms around Arra's leg protestingly.

Arra looked down at him, and his big brown eyes stared pleadingly up at her. "All right," she said softly, bending down and then lifting him up into her arms. "We don't have much longer to walk. You can sleep." She shifted him into her lift arm and Bear immediately rested his head down on her shoulder. She put her right hand on his back to hold him in place.

"Do you want me to carry him?" Mr. Crepsley asked her, hurrying in front of me and putting his hands out, but Arra shook her head.

"It's all right, I've got him." She began walking again, and Mr. Crepsley hung back as she did.

I came up next to him and put a hand on his elbow to stop him from going ahead. "You know," I told him, "I don't think you have to worry."

"What do you mean?" he asked, puzzled.

"I mean about the future," I said, my face splitting into a sappy grin. "About, you know, your baby. I think Arra will be a good mother. Maybe she just needs some experience, and you're right, Bear's perfect for that."

I saw Mr. Crepsley's face twitch, as if the thought of their child was still such a strange and miraculous concept. Then his eyes softened and he smiled. "I have no doubt she will be wonderful."

"Maybe that's why Frank and Bear are with us," I said, the revelation washing over me in a strangely certain way. "For Arra to get to know Bear...to get to care about him. Soften her a bit."

Mr. Crepsley's eyes were fixed to his ex-mate as she became farther and farther ahead of us. "She does care about him," he said quietly, then looked down at me, and though is mouth didn't move, his eyes beamed. "I think that you are right, Darren."

Now yards in front of us, Arra turned around and raised her eyebrows. "Coming?" she called back, removing a hand from Bear's back just long enough to put it out in a questioning gesture.

Mr. Crepsley and I nodded and quickened our pace to catch up to her. "We need to get there by sunup," she reminded us. "No lagging."

We nodded understandingly, and Arra replaced her hand that held Bear against her. Just before she could turn around to keep walking, just before she could turn her face from us and hide it, I saw her smile for the first time in a long, long time.

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**A/N: **Well, I've been saying how much reviews mean to me, and how much I appreciate them...and it's working! Five reviews on the last chapter, guys! Awesome! :D Rowan Rawr, BlueBookworm512, ferretgirlsz, SUSHIxMONSTER, and anonymous reviewer who left no name - you guys are making my review movement dream a reality! Thank you thank you! ^_^

Of course, just because the last one got five doesn't mean it's time to stop reviewing. Let's see if we can get five again, or maybe even six! I hope you guys liked the chapter; let me know what you thought! We're about two-thirds of the way through the story now, so stay tuned ;) Thanks for reading!


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

* * *

Frank must not have had too much to drink, because by the next night, he had sobered up considerably. His story kept changing - at first, he'd said a few people had asked to buy him drinks. Then his story changed to him walking into the bar by complete accident and somehow happening to get drunk while he tried to make his way out. A few hours later, when asked again, he denied he had ever been drunk at all, and that he had been joking around with us.

We weren't overly concerned with the actual story behind it; it all seemed pretty straightforward - Frank had seen a bar and had been unable to resist the urge to drink. In my opinion, that was explanation enough, though Vancha, who had once again shifted into a state of irritable silence, seemed hell-bent on figuring where Frank had gone wrong. The tension was thick again, and I did what I could to keep the mood light and stop any impending arguments from breaking out. A positive was that Frank seemed to be the source of the tension, and rather than holding a grudge towards us for still keeping with him, Vancha took his frustration out on Frank and no one else.

"How much longer till we get rid of them?" Vancha asked pointedly two days after Frank's drunken return. Bear and Frank had fallen asleep half an hour ago, but we still had a bit of a fire going. The sun wasn't yet creeping through the dense woods in which we had taken cover.

"We've made good time the past two nights," Arra said. She was leaning back against a tree, her eyes closed while she warmed her bare feet in front of the fire. "If we keep up the pace, we could get there tomorrow night, but just barely."

"Tomorrow night?" I asked, sitting forward. "Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

Arra shrugged one shoulder. "What was the difference if I told you or not?"

"We could have gone faster," Vancha said. "One more night with Frank is one night too many."

"Well, then I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news," Arra said, "but I did say we'll just barely reach the city by tomorrow night. We may not even, if we travel at anything other than a quick pace. We certainly won't have time to return Bear, at any rate."

"Since when were we the ones dropping the kid off at his mother's?" Vancha asked. "I thought once we reached the city, we'd let Frank bring his kid back and we'd mercifully go our separate ways."

"That was the original plan, I believe," Mr. Crepsley added tentatively. "It would be rather alarming, I think, to Bear's mother, if strangers were to return her son. It might send up a bit of a red flag."

"I know," Arra said, and she shifted uncomfortably. "But I was thinking about it some more lately. I don't think we can trust Frank to return him. I know I've stood up for the idea of traveling with him, but that's because it's what my heart is telling me. Regardless of that, I don't trust him. And..." her voice trailed off, and she shifted her jaw as though contemplating whether or not to say what she was thinking. "Never mind."

"What?" Mr. Crepsley asked. "Say what is on your mind."

"No, it's nothing," she said quickly, shaking her head.

"Well," Vancha continued, "if you want to return Bear yourself, let's see if we can do it tomorrow. Isn't there any way to get there faster?"

"No," she said flatly.

"And you still don't feel safe flitting?"

The concept of the baby was something we hadn't discussed as a whole group for a while, and the subject of Arra's pregnancy specifically hadn't been mentioned any time recently. It was almost hard to remember - though it must have been several months at least now, there were still no visible physical indications, and she never brought it up, unless in vague context. Part of that included the fact that we hadn't wanted to tell Frank or Bear, and part (as I saw it, at least) was still some level of disbelief.

Arra's lips pressed into a thin line at Vancha's mention of flitting. "No," she said. "I don't."

We stared around at each other in an uncomfortable silence. It was a subject we'd have to breech eventually; Evanna had made it clear that the baby played an important role in destiny. But somehow, it seemed like something that shouldn't be brought up as lightly as topics such as when we'd arrive at our next destination, or when we'd have a chance to feed next. The fact that it was some bizarre fate made it difficult to know exactly what to say. It felt almost impolite not to ask Arra or Mr. Crepsley what they thought about impending parenthood - but what was there to say or ask?

"Have you thought about names?" The question popped out of my mouth without even passing through my brain. It was the simplest, most normal human question that I could have asked, so much so that it caught everyone off guard.

"Names?" Mr. Crepsley repeated, as if he'd never heard of such a thing.

"Yeah," I said, letting a smile slide onto my face. "You know, you'll have to name it."

There was silence for a couple of seconds, then Mr. Crepsley and Arra looked at each other and smiled. "No," Mr. Crepsley chuckled. "We have not. I suppose it is not something we should forget, is it?"

"No, you shouldn't," I said, starting to laugh myself.

I'd made Mr. Crepsley, Arra, Harkat, and even Vancha smile. I was a little proud of myself for lightening our moods, and hopefully the topic on whole. I couldn't be sure, but I didn't think even Mr. Crepsley and Arra had had much of a chance to talk, not since our time on the train, at least.

"I wonder what the...other vampires are going to have...to say about this," Harkat said thoughtfully. "I've been thinking lately...that maybe, after we've made it to...the Cirque du Freak, one or two...of us should go back to...tell them what's going on. They have no idea...what we've been doing the past few months."

"I hadn't thought of that," Vancha said. "Tiny said they couldn't help us, but I suppose that doesn't mean they have to be left in the dark. Maybe Darren and I should consider heading back, to inform the other Princes." He looked at me, and I shrugged one shoulder. I didn't want to back out of my duties as a Prince, especially so early on, but I didn't feel any need to return to Vampire Mountain so soon. I was looking forward to getting back to the Cirque du Freak. Though it seemed like our journey there was destined to be fraught with trouble - we'd had run-ins with human law enforcement, we'd inadvertently added two traveling companions (though, I strongly believed that was truly destiny, for Arra's sake at least) - we were almost there now. I didn't like the thought of leaving the Cirque as soon as we got there.

Luckily, it didn't seem like Vancha was looking for any type of answer from me. He snorted and glanced at Arra. "We have quite a story to tell them. I wonder how they'll react."

"I've given that some thought," Arra said, and I could tell by her tone that it wasn't something she'd expressed to anyone yet. Mr. Crepsley's eyes flicked over to her, his brows raised. "I think...at first, I don't think they'll believe it. But then, once they do...I don't know. I'm not even sure what it means. Evanna was hunted by vampires for centuries until she proved she wasn't to be taken advantage of. Will they consider me to have the same power - the ability to bear vampire young? _Do _I have that power, or was it a one-time act of destiny?"

I thought about that one for a moment - it wasn't something I'd even begun to think about, though it made sense that she would have.

"I think that is a question Evanna would be willing to answer," Mr. Crepsley said slowly, and he looked as though the idea of Arra being sought after by other vampires for the rest of her life was extremely unnerving. "We cannot be sure when we will see her again, but in my experience, she is never truly far. But perhaps it is best to keep this particular detail from the rest of the vampire clan until you have a definite answer."

She nodded. "I'm not so sure that Evanna will be willing to answer any of my questions, and to be honest, I'm not so sure I want her to. Last time, she was neither particularly helpful nor compliant. She confirmed my suspicion, but created more questions than she gave answers."

"Well," Mr. Crepsley said, his voice forcedly reassuring, "we will not truly know until we have spoken with her."

Arra shrugged half-heartedly. "I guess not. But it would be nice if she would at least reveal what she knows that so directly involves me. To be honest, I've been thinking a lot lately, and I can't help but notice that nothing seems to be progressing. Usually, any human baby would have visibly grown by now, wouldn't it?"

"That depends on how long you've been pregnant," I said. I was (obviously) no expert on the subject, but I figured maybe they'd been vampires so long, they'd all forgotten things like this.

"I know that," she said. "But I think that I, at least, would notice a difference. Even a subtle change."

"How pregnant are you, anyway?" Harkat asked, frowning. "I just realized that...I never actually thought about...a time frame for when...the baby would...actually arrive."

"I'm not too sure," Arra sighed. "I've thought about it, but there's no real way of knowing exactly how long it's been, is there?" She looked at Mr. Crepsley, who was conveniently looking in the opposite direction, his face (and more precisely, its hue) out of our view. "It's not like it was something we ever planned for, or thought would happen. So..." She put her hands out and rolled her wrists a couple times, as if hoping to snatch the right words out of the air. "It's not as though we ever thought...I mean, we never had to...we didn't..."

"There's no possible way for you to end that sentence that won't cause Larten's face to burst into flames," Vancha interrupted her with an amused snort, "so I'll stop you short and save him the humiliation. There's no way to be positive, but surely, adding the time it's been since we left Evanna's to the point at which you began to have suspicions, there should be some change."

I grinned childishly at the floor as Mr. Crepsley pretended to busy himself with the laces on his boot.

"Yes," Arra nodded in confirmation of what Vancha had clarified. "And it's beginning to make me wonder if something is...wrong."

That was also something I'd never thought of. "Wrong?" I repeated. "Could something go wrong? It is destiny, after all."

"Of course something could go wrong," she said, and she got to her feet and began to pace. I could tell that she was finally expressing what had likely been weeks, or even months, of worry. "That's why I haven't wanted to flit, after all. It's why I've been cautious on a whole."

Vancha leaned back against a boulder and crossed his arms, giving a contented sigh. "Do I hear a sense of attachment in those words?"

Arra stopped pacing momentarily to stare at him. "Well, shouldn't you?"

The Prince shrugged. "I was under the impression that if you could go back in time, or make this all go away, you would. If you recall, I asked you if that was the case back when this was new to us, and you refused to answer my question. I assumed it was because you regretted the way things had turned out."

All eyes were on Arra now, especially Mr. Crepsley's. They'd talked on the train, but I had no way of knowing what had been said. Maybe Arra had simply told him that she was unsure about the whole thing - maybe he wanted some insight into her mind as much as the rest of us.

"But, I re-pose the question," Vancha continued calmly, uncaringly, as if the answer didn't mean much to him. "If you could go back and change this, would you?"

Arra looked at him for several more long, silent seconds, then resumed her pacing. The fire cast dancing shadows on her face, and the flickering of the light made it impossible to read her eyes or expression. "No," she answered finally, her voice keeping shakily with the apathetic tone she so often chose to resort to in fear of disclosing her emotions. "I don't suppose I would."

There was a collective inhale at the words. Judging by the small smile and only partial look of relief, it was something Mr. Crepsley had known, or at least suspected, but it was an admission Vancha, Harkat, and I had been waiting for - and possibly not expecting - for a long time.

As Arra's pacing took her past the tree stump Mr. Crepsley had sat himself on, he reached out for her elbow and gave her a gentle tug to sit down on his lap. He wrapped his arms around her as she chewed nervously at one side of her lip. "I am sure that everything is fine," he told her calmly, adeptly resuming out previous discussion. "Let us not forget that this child has a majority of vampire blood. It will grow more slowly than a human baby."

"I know," Arra said heavily. "But I wish there was some way of knowing."

"Of course you do," he said. "I do as well. But there is not much we can do to that end at the present, and so it does not do to worry or dwell on the matter. If something has gone wrong, I am sure you would be able to tell."

Arra nodded. "I know," she said again. "And I don't think anything has gone wrong...but that's not to say it won't."

"But that is not to say it will either," Mr. Crepsey said softly, "right?"

Arra exhaled slowly, shutting her eyes and letting her head rest on his shoulder. "Right."

I was watching the scene play out in front of me as though it was in a film, and I was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a mushy grin plastered on my face. That is, I was oblivious until I received a glare from my mentor.

"Well," I said, shaking my head as I snapped out of my reverie. "I'm tired; I'm going to try to get some sleep."

"Right," Harkat said, and we exchanged smiles, as he had clearly been observing the tender scene in much the same way I had. "Good day, all."

"G'day," Vancha wished us, and he slid down indiscriminately onto the closest patch of ground.

I lay down and closed my eyes, and I could hear the crunching of leaves as Mr. Crepsley and Arra made their way to douse the fire and turn in on the nearest bed of moss. I yawned contentedly, stretched out, and fell easily asleep.

* * *

**A/N: **Well, my wonderful, darling readers, you have astonished me again - seven reviews on the last chapter! Seven! Oh my goodness does that make me happy! **Miss Feminist, ferretgirlsz, SUSHIxMONSTER, BlueBookworm512, Rowan Rawr, and both anonymous reviewers - **you are all amazing! Thank you! Seven was, I believe, my record for one chapter in _The Fourth Hunter _:D It's great to get feedback from you all! But don't stop reviewing now - let's see if we can make it to eight! I might even work out a little surprise if we can hit ten - ten is a lot of reviews for one chapter, and I'm not really expecting it, BUT if you guys make it happen, I might have something special for you all up my sleeve...;)

Thanks for reading!


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

* * *

"Frank?"

As had become commonplace that night, Frank gave a start at the call of his name. When we'd woken up that night, we'd noticed a difference in him right off the bat. Any remaining signs of drunkenness had by now completely worn off, but Frank's sober persona had changed from before. He was no longer moody and sulking. Instead, he was as pugnacious as he had been drunk, and on edge to say the very least.

"What is it?" he snapped, turning around to face me and Bear. He had gone off on his own, unusual in and of itself, while we were taking a break. While the rest of us had sat near the edge of a pond, drinking water and resting our legs, he had gone to the edge of the forest and was standing on the bounds, staring into the darkness within the trees.

"Arra says we have to get going again if we want to reach the city by sunup," I told him. "So come on."

He made a face. "Goddamn near scared me outta my skin. Quit doin' that."

"Sorry," I shrugged, nudging Bear's shoulder to get him moving back towards the vampires and Harkat. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"Well, you just watch it," he grunted, tucking his hands into his pockets and following us.

As we neared the others, their eyes darted towards Frank and they immediately fell silent. It was hard for me to make out what they had been saying - there was a small, trickling waterfall that fed the pond by which they were sitting, and it's splashing and gentle churning was making it difficult for even my super-sensitive ears to hear. But I could guess that they had taken a chance while Bear had been away with me to discuss exactly what would happen once we'd reached the city. As we'd left things last night, Arra was still opposed to parting ways with Bear until we were sure he was safe and sound with his mother. Though Vancha hadn't wanted to spend additional, unnecessary time with the two, as Mr. Crepsley, Harkat, and I were willing to go along with Arra, he had conceded.

"Everyone ready?" Arra asked, getting to her feet and brushing some dirt off of her pants. "We're not going to be able to stop again this evening if we want to stay on track."

When no one said otherwise, she lifted her bag off the ground and swung it over her shoulder. "Then off we go. We're going to be getting into more settled areas, so we'll have to be aware that humans could be watching us now."

I sighed as I scooped up my own bag of possessions. I'd enjoyed the last couple days of peace and quiet while we were out in rural, human-free areas. I looked wistfully out over the pond at the rippling reflection of the almost-full moon one last time before falling into step behind Arra.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

It was a half hour later that the serenity of the country was replaced with the street lamps and cars of the suburbs. As it was still the very early hours of the morning, we didn't encounter any humans directly, and we kept far enough off the roads that those driving by wouldn't notice us. Arra said we were perfectly on track, and at one point, after climbing to the top of a particularly tall hill, we could see the lights and skyscrapers that marked the skyline of our destination.

As we neared the city, I hurried to walk beside Arra. "Hey," I said, coming up next to her. "I wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?" she asked, glancing around to see if anyone else was in earshot.

"Last night, when we were talking about bringing Bear back to his mother's, what were you going to say?"

She paused for a second, not looking at me. "What do you mean?"

"Remember?" I said. "After you said you didn't trust -" I jabbed my thumb back towards Frank who was walking silently behind Mr. Crepsley with his arms folded. "You never finished what you were saying."

"Oh," her voice lowered. "I don't think it matters. Just forget it."

"No," I shook my head and kept up with her as she quickened her pace. "What is it?" When I saw her give another look around, I added, "I won't tell anyone else, if you don't want me too. I'm just wondering."

She nodded slowly, then sighed. "I don't know if I trust Bear's mother either," she said. I raised my eyebrows - Frank had done his fair share of talking negatively about Bear's mother, but I'd never stopped to consider that leaving Bear with her might not put him in any better a position than he was now, with Frank. "You remember what Frank said, the first time we talked to him?" Arra asked. When I only stared blankly at her, she explained. "He said she hadn't cared that he'd taken Bear, hadn't even done anything about it till the police caught Frank drunk driving and called her. It's as though she didn't notice or care that he was gone." Arra took a deep breath and stopped, turning around to look at Bear, who was occupying himself with talking to a smiling Harkat. Then she looked at me, her brow furrowed and her grey eyes as filled with concern and worry as they had been the previous evening. "I don't want to leave him with that. He shouldn't..." her voice trailed off and she swallowed, then shook her head and turned to continue walking. "He needs a better home than that."

I blinked a couple times as I thought it through. Whenever I'd pictured bringing Bear back to his mother's, I'd imagined him being in a house like the one I'd grown up in, with a mother like mine, who'd be happy to see him, and who'd missed him while he was gone. I'd never pictured it being much different to how my life had been as a five year old. But now that I thought it through, I couldn't believe I had been so naive. Of course his life was different. Arra was right - his mother hadn't cared that he'd disappeared. What was to say he wouldn't wander out of the house, go missing, and she'd never give it a second thought? The idea was horrifying.

"He does," I agreed with Arra heavily. "But we have to bring him back. It's not right to leave him with Frank - we can't really be sure what his mother's like, but we _know _what Frank's like. We can't leave him with that either."

"I know we have to," she said softly. "But I need to know what we're leaving him with. I couldn't live with never knowing. I want to bring him back. I don't want to trust Frank with that job. I know I can't bring him to his mother's doorstep, but...I've thought it through. We'll tell Frank to return him, and I'll follow him. He'll never know. And then I could see where he takes him, so I'd know where he's going to live. And maybe someday, I could..." she trailed off and shook her head. "Or maybe not. But then I would know, at least. "

"But what if it wasn't what you wanted to see?"

"Then I'd cross that path when I got to it," she said. "But I'd rather know, either way."

I nodded, looking behind us at the others, who were all absorbed in their own conversations and oblivious to ours. "And you don't think they'd want you to go?"

"I don't want them to tell me what I know is the truth: that whatever the case, whatever the situation, we need to leave Bear."

"Well..." I said slowly. "I won't tell them. But you're going to have to, eventually, if you're going to follow Frank. And chances are, he's going to go during the day."

She shrugged. "I can stay out of the sun."

Her mind had been made up a long time ago, and I wasn't going to even try to change it. She was right. I hated the idea of Bear living with a someone who didn't care about him, or take proper care of him, or give him every bit of love and attention he deserved. But there wasn't anything we could do about it.

I opened my mouth to speak but found that there was a lump in my throat that made it almost impossible. I tried to clear it a couple times, then coughed. "But there really is nothing we can do," I told her, and my voice sounded more like a croak. "It's true."

"I know," she whispered, and I thought I saw a streak of a tear run down her face, but she shook her hair out from behind her ear to hide it from view. "I know."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

We reached the city well before sunrise. Our first stop was the basement of an abandon building. Regardless of what happened with Frank and Bear, we needed somewhere to stay for the day, though we still had a couple solid hours of darkness.

Almost as soon as we'd crept in through the old, rotted-open door, Frank's edginess got stranger.

"I've gotta go out for a bit," he announced to no one in particular as we placed out travelling bags down in a corner. We stopped and looked up at him, bewilderment on our faces.

"What do you mean, 'go out'?" Mr. Crepsley asked. "Where could you possibly have to go at this hour in the morning?"

Frank shifted uncomfortably on his feet, scratching his fingers through his thinning hair. "I got some things to do while I'm here, before I bring..." he jerked his thumb towards Bear.

"What could you possibly have to do now?" I asked incredulously. "It must be three in the morning!"

"Who cares? Vancha interrupted unexpectedly. We turned to stare at him, but he only shrugged one shoulder. "I'm serious. He's not our problem anymore. We said we'd travel with him here, and we made it. So he can do whatever he bloody well wants, and so can we."

There were a few seconds of silence in which Bear tried to figure out exactly what was going on, and Frank tried to figure out if Vancha really had just sided with him or not. When no one agreed nor disagreed with Vancha, Frank coughed and started edging towards the door. "I'll be back for Bear," he said as he fumbled with the rusted doorknob, and then he slipped outside and shut the door behind him.

"Do you think that is wise?" Mr. Crepsley asked Vancha slowly. "There is no telling where or what he is going to do now that he is on familiar ground."

"But it's not our problem," Vancha said indifferently. "We did our part, and we managed to get him here without any hangups, which I'll admit I never thought would happen. But now he can do whatever the hell he wants. If he goes and gets himself, I dunno, blown up or something, I couldn't care less."

"Why's he gonna blow up?" Bear piped in.

"He's not going to...blow up," Harkat assured Bear kindly. "Vancha was just using...it as an expression."

Vancha grunted. "So what if we never see him again? We could bring Bear back ourselves and all this would be behind us tomorrow. Actually, I personally think we'd be best off if he was just gone from here on out."

To everyone's surprise but mine, Arra agreed, "You're right. We can't stop Frank from doing what he wants. Our part of the journey with him is over."

"Them," Vancha corrected her. "Our part of the journey with _both_ of them is over, as soon as we've gotten rid of -" he jerked his thumb at Bear, who was still looking confused.

Arra didn't respond to that, but instead sat heavily down on the ground and began to rifle through her bag. "Damn it," she muttered under her breath. Frowning, she looked up at Mr. Crepsley. "Do you have any more...?" She held up two of the empty phials that usually contained blood. "I'm all out."

"No," he shook his head. "Remember, yesterday I realized we are all out? Perhaps while we are here, we should...restock."

"What's 'restock' mean?" Bear asked. "And what are you out of?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it," I told him, smiling and patting his back. I was going to miss Bear's questions.

"I will refill them tonight," my mentor said, holding out a hand, and Arra placed her empty glass bottles in his palm.

"I'll come with you," Vancha offered. "It'd do me some good to hunt."

"You're going hunting?" Bear asked, his eyes wide. "Why?"

"They're not hunting like that," I assured him, smiling, as Mr. Crepsley and Vancha gathered up all the empty phials and headed out of the basement. "It's just an expression they use. They're just going to get some food."

"Adults sure use lots of expression," Bear said, reaching his fingers into his shirt pocket and pulling Milo out by his tail. "Are they getting me food too?

"I'm not sure if...you're going to like the food...they're getting," Harkat said, smiling jaggedly. "But we still have some...that you might like in...our bags. And I'm sure your...mother will have some when...you get back with her."

The air seemed suddenly to weigh more than it had a second ago, and I could feel my stomach turn into a knot. "What do you mean?" Bear asked, turning to look at the Little Person, whose stitched-up face had fallen into a wince. "Mommy isn't here."

The fact remained that over the weeks we'd been with Frank and Bear, no one had ever really explained to Bear what was going on. We'd never told him where we were headed, why we were headed there, and what we'd planned to do once we got there. All he'd known was that he and his father had been traveling with us, and that had been plenty for him. Now that I thought back on it, someone should have told him we were bringing him here to return him to his mother - I'd assumed he'd know, but he was five; he couldn't possibly have known or understood what was going on.

The silence held for several seconds. Harkat shifted uncomfortably while Arra stared unblinkingly at the floor. I chewed at my bottom lip nervously, then cleared my throat. "We know she isn't here right now," I told him, keeping my voice as casual as possible. "But you're going to see her soon."

"Really?" Bear said, and to everyone's relief, a smile appeared on his face. "Where is she?"

"She lives around here," Harkat told him. "Your dad is going to...bring you to see her when...he gets back." The Little Person thought for a second then shrugged, "Probably, anyway."

"And then she's going to come with us?" Bear said happily. "I wonder if she's going to like Milo. She doesn't really like mice. Actually, she doesn't like animals. A puppy followed me home once, and she..."

"Wait, wait, hang on, Bear," I said, holding up a hand to stop him, my stomach sinking again. I could tell by the way Arra had squeezed her eyes shut that she'd caught what he'd said too. "She's not coming with us. Your mom, I mean. She's...she's not coming with us."

"Oh," he said, sounding only a little deflated. "That's okay. I'll just give her a hug and she'll kiss me and tell me I've gotten big and then we can go again. I don't mind."

"No, Bear, that's not...that's not what's going to happen," I said, my throat tightening up. I looked first at Harkat, who was adamantly refusing to meet my gaze, and then at Arra, who was sitting perfectly still on the ground, her fingertips pressed to her lips as she stared blankly at the wall. "You're going to stay with your mom." His little smile slid off his face, and I wanted to stop talking, tell him he could come with us, but I couldn't, and I couldn't leave any more room for him to get confused. "You're going to stay with your mom, and we're going to leave. We can't stay here, but you can." I cleared my throat and blinked a couple times. "You have to."

The words had been difficult to choke out, but now I was left with a feeling of total numbness as Bear's big brown eyes stared up at me. In a few hours, we were going to have to say goodbye to Bear for good - goodbye to the little boy who had appeared so suddenly one day in an abandon warehouse while we hid from the cops; goodbye to the little boy who had scared me half to death when he'd gone out alone to find his pet mouse; goodbye to the little boy who'd broken down a bit of the wall Arra had around herself when she needed it the most.

"Why..." Bear started, his voice shaking and his eyes beginning to grow shiny, "why can't I come with you?"

I wanted to tell him that he just couldn't and leave it at that, end the whole conversation and forget it had ever happened. But I couldn't do that to Bear. He'd done so much for us without even realizing it. He deserved an explanation - even if he was too little to understand it, he deserved at least that.

"I wish you could, Bear," I said softly, kneeling down in front of him and putting my hands on his shoulders as his little head drooped down and he began to tremble. "We all wish you could. But where we're going, what we're going to be doing - it's dangerous. You could get hurt. And we all care too much about you to let that happen. You'll be happy here, and safe, and you can be a kid. Don't..." I had to stop talking for a second to clear my throat and blink the tears out of my own eyes before continuing, "don't give that up. Trust me."

To my right, Arra covered her face with her hands as Bear began to sob harder. "B..b...but I w...want to c...c...come with you," he moaned, slumping down into the floor and hugging his knees as he cried harder.

"I'm sorry, but you can't," I whispered, conscious of the fact that there were tears running down my own cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Bear. I wish we'd told you before but..." my voice trailed off - there was no 'but'.

He continued to cry but said nothing else. He didn't understand. He thought we didn't want him.

"Bear?" Harkat said hoarsely, appearing behind him and putting a hand on his shaking back. "Please don't cry. It's not so...bad. You will be happy... here."

Bear shook his head against his knees and rubbed his fists into his eyes, continuing to gasp for breath between his uncontrollable sobs. I ran a hand over my face, trying to clear away my own tears to help convince him that it would be okay, and there was nothing to be sad about, but it was no use.

I heard shuffling to my right and a quick glance out of the corner of my eye told me that Arra had gotten up. She came slowly towards Bear and crouched down beside him, gently extending her hands and lifting him easily up off the ground into her arms. Her face was pale and her eyes dry - rather than tearful as mine were, hers were focused in an equally upsetting hollow blankness. Bear's arms instinctively wrapped around her shoulders and he clung onto her as her right hand lovingly nudged his head down to rest on her shoulder. Her own forehead rested against him, and her hair fell forwards to hide her face from view as she once again lowered herself to the ground, keeping Bear pressed into her chest while he continued to cry unrelentingly.

I looked up from Arra to Harkat, hoping to find something in the Little Person's eyes to comfort the ever-growing squeeze in my chest, but the green orbs were as miserable as mine. We stared at each other for several long seconds before he finally shook his grey head and looked down. No longer able to watch Bear weep, I covered my own eyes with my arms, shut them tight, and tried desperately to remind myself that this was all for the best, and that even though this was hard, it was better for Bear.

It felt like hours had passed before the sobbing began to exhaust Bear and he started to settle down. Not long after, his gasping had evened out into slower, steadier breaths. I lifted my chin slightly to see over my arms and found that Arra too had looked up. She was staring off into the darkness, her hair still partially covering her face, the bits damp from Bear's tears sticking to her cheeks.

"Asleep?" I asked her softly.

She nodded, glancing down at the little boy still hugged tightly in her arms. "Yeah," she said, her voice nothing more than a whisper. "He's cried himself out." She shifted his weight from her left side to her right but made no motion to put him down. There was large wet spot on her shoulder where Bear's tears had collected and been absorbed into the fabric.

I heaved a sigh and lay back on the ground, starting to feel the wear caused by the emotions myself.

"I hate this," Harkat said, his voice even more crackly than usual. "I hate every single...bit of this."

"I wish..." I started, then held my tongue. I did wish we weren't leaving Bear behind, but I did not wish any harm on him. He'd be safer and happier here...wouldn't he? He would. I had to convince myself of that. Rephrasing in my head what I'd been about to say, I said, "I just wish we'd had a little more time with Bear. I'm really going to miss him."

"So am I," Harkat said.

Arra opened her mouth as though about to agree, but instead let out a long breath and only nodded her head.

A rustling behind Harkat got all of our attention, but it was only Milo scurrying across some papers to run and hide in Mr. Crepsley's bag. I let out a single, "Ha," shaking my head and forcing a smile. "I'm going to miss that mouse too."

Another noise, this time the turning and clicking of a doorknob, and then the banging open of a door told me that someone had returned. I half looked for a split second to see Frank standing in the doorway, then turned unaffectedly away almost immediately. There, at least, was someone I would not miss.

At first, when Arra's eyes flashed suddenly and she put Bear's sleeping form on the ground, I couldn't figure out why her demeanor had changed so suddenly. "What...?" I began to ask as she leapt to her feet, but as I turned back to look at Frank, who was slowly approaching us, my question was answered. He was walking with a definitely drunken stumble, his face contorted into one of craze, anger and...was it fear? His arm was outstretch towards Arra, and in his quaking hand he held a very large, very shiny knife.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm not going to lie, I nearly began to cry myself writing this chapter.

First - My apologies on taking longer to update this than I'd meant to. I've been swamped with schoolwork and, frankly, lazy :P

Second - Well, I promised you all a surprise if we got to ten reviews, but we fell just a little short. And I mean juuuuust a little - but that's okay! Eight total! **SUSHIxMONSTER**, **ferretgirlsz, Rowan Rawr, Miss Feminist, Kiddo, BlueBookworm12, Aiden The Odd, **and** anonymous reviewer, **you all made me incredibly happy :) Thank you all so very much - please know how much I appreciate it! Just because we didn't make it to ten doesn't mean I'm not ecstatic - eight is a huge jump from the three-ish I'd been averaging before :P And that ten-review surprise is still here! If at _any _point we can get to ten reviews on a chapter, that surprise is ready and waiting. Thank you all so very much for reading, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this chapter! :)


	15. 10 Review Surprise! A Sneak Peak

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

**A/N: **Well, you amazing, fantastic, wonderful readers, ten reviews, in _less than two days_! Thank you all so very much - I could repeat myself, tell you how much it means to me, how much I appreciate it, but I think by now you know :) So, **SUSHIxMONSTER, person-who-left-no-name, Jamie, ferretgirlsz, MissFeminist, Rowan Rawr, anonymous reviewer, Kiddo, BlueBookworm512 , **and **wow **- you are all incredibly awesome! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

As promised, here's the surprise! This is a sneak peak of the next book, the sequel to _The Sixth Path of Destiny_. I'm not telling you from where in the story this bit is coming - it could be the first chapter, the last chapter, a random one in the middle...who knows?

Enjoy! And, you know, reviews would be nice ;)

* * *

_What's happening?_

My head was throbbing, and I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I was forced to duck my head – the ventilation pipes were small – and the blood rushed around in my face, making me sweat. But still, I crawled persistently, stopping every few seconds to listen. Casual voices as I passed by lobbies and rooms with friendly visitors; composed urgency and clanging as I crept through the walls of operating rooms; an occasional laugh, a ring of the phone, a groan, a scream. But none of them familiar.

_Where ARE they?_

I reasoned that I'd been in here long enough - it felt like hours - and crawled up and down through enough little trapped doors and through tubes with ladders to different levels that I'd gone through the entire ventilation system by now. So why hadn't something caught my ears? Why did I still know nothing? Where were the others?

_This is all your fault._

It repeated itself in my head maddeningly until finally it made my chest so tight that I stopped crawling and lay down flat on my stomach against the cool metal bottom of the vent. I pushed my palms against the ears, trying to silence the screaming of my torturous thoughts, but they were unrelenting. I should have been paying more attention. I shouldn't have let my mind drift and my thoughts wander in the heat of battle – if I hadn't, if I'd focused, I could have…No! I couldn't focus – how could I after I'd heard something like that? No one would blame me.

_But that doesn't mean it's not your fault._

No, it is –was? Is? - _not _my fault! I'd taken a blow for her (_too late_). I'd done what I could (_too late_)– I hadn't left unscathed, I'd killed, done my part. I'd been knocked cold, hadn't I? I'd tried to stop it from happening.

_B__ut you were too late._

No, no, this couldn't be happening. Even Destiny couldn't be this cruel. I rolled onto my back in the tiny space and squeezed my eyes shut. Yes it was, yes _he _was. Had this all just been a trick? A trick to what? Just to get to us in the most horrible way possible?

_Stop jumping to conclusions, you don't know anything yet._

Yes I did. I knew, I just knew. This must have been a set up – a set up from way back. Destiny and his deranged daughter must have thought it would make quite for quite the laugh. What did this mean? What _now_?

_You need to keep going._

I slowly rolled back onto my hands and knees and started crawling again, only tuning my ears for the sounds of the outdoors; being inside the vents was proving pointless and frustrating. I needed to find them – I needed to know if it really was too late.


	16. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

**A/N (at the beginning again - I'm keeping you all on your toes!): **So first, I once again must thank you all for the amazing job of reviewing not just the previous _Sixth Path _chapter, but also that sneak peak of the next book I posted! You people (and I'm sure you're getting sick of seeing me list your names, but because I feel you all deserve shout-outs: **SUSHIxMONSTER, person-who-left-no-name, Jamie, ferretgirlsz, MissFeminist, Rowan Rawr, anonymous reviewer, Kiddo, BlueBookworm512 , **and **wow**) are completely and utterly awesome :D

While this is a quick-ish update, it is on the short side, but if I hadn't ended it where I did, the next good stopping point wouldn't be for thousands of words and would most likely take me weeks to write. But I always get excited to start new chapters so this should make it go faster :D

And of course remember that it's back to _Sixth Path _now after that little teaser of book three , and if you remember, when we left off, Frank had a knife...;)

* * *

The entire room seemed frozen for a few seconds as Frank's quaking hand held the knife out towards Arra. He was swaying on his feet, and his eyes were glazed and unfocused as they gazed in the general direction of me, Harkat, and Arra.

"What is this about?" Arra asked finally, taking a step towards Frank. He made a forward, shaking motion with the knife, as if warning her not to come closer. She kept her distance but showed no fear as he waved the blade at her.

"You know wha' this is bloody about!" he barked, and behind the drunken slurring, there was fear in his voice, the same inexplicable fear that I had sensed in his eyes when he'd first stumbled in. He was full-on shaking, and the corners of his eyes and mouth twitched uncontrollably.

"No," Arra said calmly, "I can't say I do. Put the knife down and tell me what the problem is." She glanced down at Bear, still asleep where she'd put him down on the floor. "Harkat," she said, her eyes darting over to look at the Little Person before fixing once again on Frank. "Bring him somewhere else – up to a different level or something so he won't wake up."

"Don't take him anywhere!" Frank snapped, waving the knife once again, but Harkat paid him no attention and scooped Bear off the floor, heading quickly towards the stairs in the back of the basement. "What're you goin' to do with him?"

Arra blinked. "_We _are not going to do anything to harm you. _You _have been brandishing a knife at us since you got here."

"I'm not…I'm not gonna hurt him, i's protection from _you_!" he roared.

"Why do you need protection from us?" Arra asked. She was keeping her tone level and unthreatening, but I could tell by the way her fingertips dug into the palms of her hands that she was prepared for Frank to make a sudden attack or movement. "You've been with us for weeks, and we've made no attempts to hurt you. Why the sudden aggression? You weren't acting like this when you left."

"I've been watchin' you," he stammered, letting then knife drop momentarily, but then immediately raising it again. "All along, I knew there was something wrong wit this whole thing."

"Why?" I asked, also climbing to my feet. He gave a growl at the motion, but I put my hands up and backed up submissively and he seemed to calm down.

"I jus' knew," he grunted. "And then, when they…" he stopped mid-sentence, his mouth continuing to hang open, but he seemed to think better of whatever it had been he was going to say. He raised his left arm up to wipe the sweat off his brow. "But now I know wha' the matter is," he finished. "And I'm gonna get you before you can get me…_bloodsuckers._"

Arra and I froze. It was impossible. There was no way he could have known. He'd never seen us feed. We'd made an effort to avoid referring to ourselves as vampires at all since they'd traveled with us. We didn't have fangs, or any of the other traits humans thought vampires possessed. So how could he possibly have known?

"That's ridiculous," Arra said finally, her voice staying impossibly steady. "Why would you ever think that?"

"All along. All along, I shoulda known ," Frank said, slurring the words together. He wasn't answering her question or even talking to us anymore, but instead thinking aloud, trying to string together his drunken thoughts. His bloodshot eyes had glazed over again and his face continued to twitch. "Killed those people, they did. They're murderers...no, monsters! I never shoulda believed 'em, shoulda known..."

"What are you talking about?" Arra said sharply. "We haven't killed anyone. We aren't monsters at all."

"Yeah you did!" he barked, his eyes suddenly coming into an eerie focus on Arra. "You really shoulda been in prison. I shoulda turned you in. And as soon as I thought something was wrong, I shoulda run when I had the chance. I never-."

"Stop rambling!" Arra snapped at him. "You're being crazy, Frank. Sit down and tell us what the problem is."

"I toldya!" he shouted, taking a step forward, sounding a little braver now. "You're bloodsuckers - vampires! You're gonna drink my blood! You -"

"If we were going to drink your filthy, drunken blood," Arra interrupted him loudly, "we'd have done so weeks ago."

Frank put a hand over his throat and swallowed. "So i's true," he choked. "You've fessed up to it now. You're vampires. They wasn't lyin' to me. Jesus."

"I did not say that we were vampires," Arra said, her brow furrowing suddenly. "But who told you that we were?"

She glanced sideways at me, her eyes narrowed, and we could both predict what the answer was going to be. There were only two possibilities in my mind. The first was the medler himself, Desmond Tiny. The second - vampaneze.

"None of yer business," Frank said. "They said they could help me kill you if I wanted, but it seemed so absurd I didn' believe 'em. But I got to thinkin', wonderin' what really was the matter with you. I know now, they was right about you. But they ain't here now. I don't need their help, no, I don't." He was grumbling to himself again, and his shaking legs were guiding him towards us . "An' if you kill me, they'll know, and they'll come after you themselves."

"Who are you talking about?" Arra asked him, taking a stride forward though he continued to approach us with the knife. "Whoever told you...whatever it is they told you, it was a lie. Just tell us who they were and what they said, and I'm sure you'll realize -."

"NO!" Frank yelled. "Back up, vampire, or I'll run the knife through your heart before you can say another word."

At the very least, I felt Frank deserved some credit for knowing that the good old stake-through-the-heart wasn't the only way to kill a vampire. For that, despite all his stupidity, I gave him credit.

"Look," Arra said, her voice mellowing back down as she tried to settle his temper. "I won't hurt you if you don't hurt us. I just want to talk to you. If you won't tell me who you talked to, at least tell me what they said. Maybe I can explain -."

"'Said you were vampires," Frank snarled. "And that they'd kill yer for me on the spot. But I wasn't so sure, reckoned I'd just met 'em at all and they mighta had a couple drinks too many..."

"You met them in a bar?" Arra guessed. "But not tonight." I could almost see the gears in her head whirring as she pieced it all together. For my part, I wasn't bothering to figure any of this out. All that mattered was that Frank was drunk, scared and unpredictable, and he had a knife. I didn't see why it mattered how he knew about us. Arra, however, was determined to get to the bottom of it. "It must have been a few nights ago," she said slowly. "The people in the bar who bought you the drinks." Her eyes flashed. "What did you tell them about us?"

"I didn't tell 'em nothin'," Frank barked. "An' if I did, I'd every right to. I told 'em I was travelin', they asked me with who, I told 'em 'bout y'all, and-"

"What did you tell them?"

Frank continued on as if he hadn't heard her. "-they got all quiet an' said they thought they mighta know yer and then they told me you're vampires." His knuckles were turning white as he gripped the handle of the knife tighter. "Sounded so goddamn stupid I didn't hardly believe 'em, an' when they said they'd kill yous for me I said naw, didn't want that, 'cause I thought they was stoned off their asses, but then I thought on it an' it all started to make sense."

By now he was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring, his face a flushed red. He was walking slowly forwards again, his arm till shaking violently. Arra and I held our ground, unwilling to back up. If he really had intended to kill us, I thought, he already would have. It was a battle of the minds now, as he approached us, I thought, and surely Arra and I would win. Frank would drop the knife in seconds, blubber something or the other, and it would be over; I was sure of it.

I was wrong.

Frank's reflexes were faster than I could have imagined possible for a drunk human, and what happened next was almost too quick to see. Frank lunged towards Arra, the knife aimed straight at her chest, a wild, crazed look in his eye. A shriek of horror ripped through me as I stood, too far away and shocked to do anything, and watched what I was sure would be the end of Arra.

At the last second possible, when he was right where she wanted him, right within her reach, there was a flash of her hands, a sickeningly loud crack, and a clatter as Frank's body crashed to the floor. Arra had broken his neck. Frank was dead.

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**A/N (again): **Dun dun dunnn (no, I could _not _resist the dun dun dunnn :))! As usual, I thank you all for reading! Now, I'm going to extend another reviewing challenge at some point, but at the moment, I have, unfortunately, nothing to offer. I will get working on it though, and I should have one ready soon :) But does that mean you shouldn't review this chapter? Noooooooo! Please please do review! You know how I love them!


	17. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

* * *

A long, tense minute passed in almost total silence; the only sound was the frantic pounding of my heart against my chest. I stared at Frank's motionless body, entirely transfixed. For that moment, the walls could have fallen in and I wouldn't have noticed.

"Darren?" For all I knew, Arra could have called my name ten times already. The only reason I was drawn out of my hypnotized, horrified state was because Arra had taken hold of my shoulder and turned me away from the sight of the dead Frank.

"What is it?" I asked, my voice coming out in a croak.

"Are you all right? You're shaking."

"Am I all right?" I slowly repeated the question back, then shook my head a couple times to try and clear out the smog that was filling the space between my ears. Though I was no longer facing Frank, I realized that the image of his neck cracking and his lifeless form falling to the ground was still burned into my head and I could see nothing else. I blinked and rubbed my palms over my face a couple times, but it was only a few second later, when a snap of Arra's fingers in front of my nose clicked into my ears that my eyes were finally able to focus on the now. Arra was in front of me, one hand on my shoulder as concern filled her eyes. She too looked shaken, though I had a feeling her pallor was nothing compared to how I looked.

"Are you all right?" she repeated. "Sit down, right here. Go on."

I numbly followed her instructions and let myself fall onto the floor, my face falling into my hands while I tried to take a couple deep breaths. I could hear Arra rifling through a nearby bag, and several seconds later, her footsteps came back towards me.

"Here," she said, prying one of my hands off my face and lifting my chin. "Drink this."

My eyes remained shut as she pressed the cool glass to my lips. I expected to taste blood, but instead found the liquid to be water. Of course, I reminded myself, that's where Mr. Crepsley and Vancha had gone, to get blood. The water was a slight disappointment - I knew blood would have help me recover from the shock faster - but it still worked wonders to bring me out of the trauma-induced lag that had taken a grip over my head.

I slowly opened my eyes when Arra finally pulled the now-empty water-filled glass away from my face. I nodded weakly to show my appreciation, then reluctantly turned again to look at Frank. "Charna's guts, Arra," I said hoarsely. "Why?"

"Why did I kill him?" she asked. "I had no other choice."

"Yes you did," I moaned. "You could have knocked him out, or moved out of the way and pinned him down or something."

"He was moving faster than I anticipated he would be able to," she said, but when I only raised one eyebrow doubtfully, she shrugged one shoulder. "It's true. I could have allowed him to live for a little while longer, but I felt there wasn't time to spare. Frank was dangerous enough at that moment, and he isn't even my greatest concern. You heard him, he's been talking - drunk and talking to Gods know who."

"What do you mean there wasn't time to spare?" I asked.

"You weren't listening to him very carefully, " she said shortly. "He said he was going to kill us, and if we killed him first the mystery people he's been speaking with would finish the job for him."

"What are you talking about?" I said, massaging my head. "He was drunk, he was crazed. He didn't know what he was saying."

"He knew better than you thought," she corrected. "He must have told them where we are, where we're going...he never knew exactly where we were going, but he knew we'd be here. That means it's just a matter of time before they make a move." She leapt to her feet and began to pace, wringing her hands as she walked.

My brain was still moving too slowly to understand completely what she was saying. "Who are 'they'?" I asked, trying to piece together what Arra already seemed to have worked out.

"I told you I don't know who 'they' are," she said, tone bordering on impatience, "but it doesn't matter. My guess is it's Desmond Tiny or Evanna, possibly vampaneze."

That's right, I thought. I'd worked that much out myself when Frank was ranting - it seemed like eons ago.

"Whoever they are, they've been tailing us long enough to know we're here now. That means we don't have any time to waste. We need to move."

She reached her hand down towards me to help me up, but I only looked up numbly. "Wha - now? We're leaving now? What about Mr. Crepsley and Vancha, and what about..." I swallowed. "What about Bear?"

She didn't answer, but instead stared down at me until I finally took her hand and let her yank me to my feet.

"Arra," I said slowly. "We have to return him before we go. Especially now, you've just killed his father." When she didn't answer and made to continue dragging me along, I gave her arm a tug until she whipped furiously around to face me. "Arra! We need-."

"I know that!" she snapped viciously and loudly. She'd never looked at me with such fire in her eyes. "We're taking him to his mother's now."

I backed away from her slightly, aware of the fact that her temper was about to fly out of control at any moment. "Okay," I said. "I'm sorry. I just..." I trailed off and sighed. "How are we supposed to know where she lives?"

"We'll figure it out," she said. "Frank said she only lives a few minutes from here. If we walk around, we should be able to pick up something that resembles Bear's scent, and..."

"A phone book," I interrupted, and she frowned. "A phone book would have her address. We could trace the scent if we're desperate, but a phone book will be faster, and the sun must be near rising by now. Do you remember his mom's name?"

"Jessica," Arra recalled, nodding. "Jessica Taylor."

I nodded. "All right. It shouldn't be too hard to find a phone book. We could go to a convenience store, or a hotel, or..."

"Darren? Arra? What's going - dear Gods..." Harkat had just appeared on the stairs in the back of the basement, peering around the corner at Frank's body. "Is he...?"

"Dead," Arra confirmed, and the Little Person's green eyes grew even wider that usual. "He had a knife, and he knew too much about us. Allowing him to live or giving him any conceivable chance of escape would have been too dangerous. Where's Bear?"

"He's...he's still asleep," Harkat said. "I left him up there when...I heard you yelling...so I could come and see if...everything was all right."

"She thinks people know we're here," I filled Harkat in as Arra began to throw things randomly into our bags, preparing to leave. "That Frank told them while he was drunk. She says we have to leave before they have a chance to find us."

"I know people know where we are," Arra corrected me flatly. "And we do have to leave." Now she was staring around the basement, brushing her hands off on her pant legs, and I had a suspicion that despite her rush, she was looking for ways to stall having to get Bear. "Larten and Vancha will be back any minute now...we need to tell them what's going on before we leave for Bear's mother's."

"Look," I said. "How about Harkat stays here to tell Mr. Crepsley and Vancha where we went, and we'll go bring Bear to his mother's? Then when we get back, they'll have probably returned already and we can go."

She hesitated, her eyes scanning up and down the basement. "All right," she said finally. "Harkat, do you have weapons on you, just in case?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"We should carry weapons as well," she told me. "I have some knives on me. I'll give you two of them before we leave."

"Okay," I nodded. "You should go get Bear."

"Right." She turned away from us and hurried up the stairs.

"He's three floors up," Harkat called after her. "The first two levels had...rickety-looking floors."

Arra didn't respond, but we were sure she'd heard. Harkat turned to me. "Darren, are you feeling okay?" he asked. "You don't look well...at all."

I sighed, turning once more to stare at Frank's body.

"You have seen death before," the Little Person pointed out. "Is this affecting you... more because we had a chance... to get to know him?"

"I'm not sure," I said heavily. "I never liked Frank - none of us did - but he wasn't an enemy. It was so sudden. One minute he was talking to us, just drunk Frank. Then next, he was going after Arra with a knife, and then...dead. I think I just wasn't expecting it. Arra's right - he probably did sell us out. We're probably in danger this minute because of him. But I can't help but feel that he was a companion, of sorts. And we're responsible for his death. If we hadn't let him come with us in the first place, he would never have become the bad guy, and he wouldn't be dead."

Harkat's jagged top teeth gnawed at his lip. "I think it was part of destiny," he said slowly. "I think Frank and Bear were destined... to come with us from the minute we set... out from Vampire Mountain. There's a reason that he died...and I think there's even a reason why he...sold us out." His voiced lowered and took on a new gentleness. "Maybe it was only for the purpose... of recognizing that more than just enemies... are going to die in our lifetime, and on... this journey. We'll lose companions...ones we're close to, and then ones...like Frank. But I think it's...a lesson to harden us all. I think that...Arra was right to kill him. There's no telling how much more... damage could have been done if...he was still alive."

"But if we'd never taken him with us..." I countered.

"I don't think that was ever an... option, even if it presented itself as one," Harkat said sadly. "I think they traveled with us because...they were meant to all along. I think Frank was born to die...today, in this basement, at the hands... of Arra." He paused for a minute, then managed a smile. "It's not our fault. It's just the way the...bloody story goes."

I nodded, still only slightly convinced, and seconds later, Arra appeared around the bend in the stairs, the sleeping Bear hugged in her arms with his head on her shoulder.

"Should I do anything with..." Harkat asked, gesturing at Frank. "Or should I have Larten and Vancha deal with it?"

"Leave him," she said quietly, being mindful not to wake Bear. "Let Larten and Vancha see if they can pick up any familiar scents on him. I thought I caught a whiff of something, but I can't place it."

Harkat nodded, then put out a grey hand to gently touch the top of Bear's head. "G'bye, Bear," he said quietly. "I'll miss you." Then he turned away and sat on the ground.

"Ready?" Arra asked me. "You'll be able to find a phone book and get his mother's address?"

"I think so," I nodded. "Be careful, Harkat," I said.

"Luck, Darren, Arra," he said, nodding at us.

"If anything seems out of the ordinary," Arra said, "try to get out. If someone comes in here and starts poking around for us, Larten and Vancha would sense them and wouldn't enter. There's no point in you waiting around here if it means your life."

He nodded, and with that Arra and I were off. The early morning was almost taunting us with irony - it was mild and clear, with the glow only the early mornings before the sun had risen held. If it had been any other time, it would be beautiful, but right now, the most stunning fields of rolling hills with roses and a glimmering lake would have looked like a scene out of hell. I vaguely remember resting in a serene spot early that very night, enjoying the reflection of the moon and bemoaning the fact that we'd soon enter the city. If I had only known then what awaited us, I would have refused to leave.

"In there," Arra said suddenly, tapping me on the shoulder. At first I was so entranced by my own self-pity that I had completely forgotten that we were on the lookout for a place that would sell phone books, but Arra had found something even better - a phone booth. Inside, underneath the receiver, sat a thick white book. "See if you can find the address," she said. "I'll wait out here with Bear."

"All right," I agreed, stepping inside and leaving the door open behind me. Phone booths had always made me feel claustrophobic.

I flipped quickly through the pages, finding the letter 'T' then scanning through the multitude of Taylors till I came to Jackie, James, Jamie...eventually near the middle, Jessica K. Taylor, 11b Jackson Ave. I repeated it in my head a couple times so I wouldn't forget, then flipped to the map on the back cover and squinted to find the street. Rather than trying to memorize the route from here, I tore the map off and took it with me before leaving the phone booth.

"Any luck?"

"Yeah." I waved the torn-out map and pointed down the street. "It should be just a few minutes from here. It's only a couple streets over. This way."

Arra and I walked in silence; there was nothing to say that we hadn't already said. I busied myself with staring at the map, trying to take my mind off the task at hand. But even with my eyes on street names and turns, I couldn't help but notice the decline in our surroundings, and with it came a sinking dread. The street lights here were mostly smashed or so entirely caked up with spiderwebs and trapped insects that the light they gave off was weak and filtered. A body shop we passed had a ten foot chain-link, barbed-wire fence surrounding it, and a sign warning that trespassers would be persecuted. There were four shops out of business in a row on one street, and each must have had numerous rocks thrown through its windows. The brick walls to the towering apartment buildings were spray-painted with innumerable crude messages and raunchy pictures.

We reached Jackson Ave within five minutes and began to look for number 11. The houses were old, narrow, and run-down, built side-by-side so that each was either sharing walls with another or else had a very small alleyway between them. The cement front steps led directly to the sidewalk, and many of the homes had visible multiple locks on the doors. A few of the houses were boarded up, and numbers 17 and 19 had red X's on the front doors. As I counted down from 15, I could see Bear's house now. It was one of the ones that had an alleyway on one of the sides and a tiny fenced-in garden out front. A 'Beware of dog' sign was tied to the fence. I wondered if the dog was nice with children - I doubted it.

I stopped at the front steps and looked up at the three-level home. No boards on the windows, no X's. Through the top window I could just barely see the glow of a light - probably a night-light for a child's bedroom. Part of me wanted to let out a sigh of relief that Bear's home looked at least in better condition than most of the others - maybe the dog was just a safety measure for the owners, and maybe the neighborhood was just old. But part of me tensed up even more. If the house had been condemned, uninhabited, or in terrible condition, we would have had a viable reason to keep Bear for even a bit longer.

The mailboxes in front indicated that 11b would be the second floor of the house. The yellowed curtains of the second story windows were drawn tightly shut and no lights shown from behind them. If his mother was in there, she was asleep.

I swallowed and looked to Arra, who had come up beside me and was looking the house up and down, chewing at one of her fingernails as she held Bear in one arm. "It doesn't looked so bad," I told her. "Maybe some nice families live on the other floors. Maybe Bear's even got friends to share the house with."

Arra didn't answer but instead started up the front steps, pushing the front door open to reveal a long staircase. "Where are you going?" I hissed, hurrying after her as she began up the stairs. As I passed the door on the ground level, a dog began to bark.

"Did you expect me to leave him outside?" she whispered, hurrying onto the second floor landing.

"Well, no, but..." I trailed off, unsure of what I had been expected. "Someone could see us."

"So what?"

The blue door in front of us was marked in clear black as Apartment B. The door had a small dent in the front, but otherwise said nothing about the resident inside.

Downstairs, a man was snapping at the dog to shut up, but I didn't mind the ruckus. My eyes had drifted off the door and onto Bear, still fast asleep and completely unaware of what was going on. He would wake up in a few hours and be with his mother once again, unsure of where his father and his new friends had gone. It suddenly struck me that even Milo hadn't shown himself this evening and was likely still back with Harkat in the basement; even Bear's beloved pet would be just a memory for the rest of the little boy's life.

I wished I could wake him up and try to explain to him what was going on, but he wouldn't understand. All I could do was say goodbye.

I carefully reached out one hand to place it on his thin arm. I found myself unable to even form words. It didn't really matter - he wouldn't hear me anyway. There was a sharp pain in the center of my chest and I suddenly realized that my eyes were beginning to sting. I quickly pulled my hand away from Bear and wiped at them.

"Can we just get this over with?" I asked Arra softly, and she nodded, not meeting my gaze. I'd seen her choked up before, struggling impossibly to keep her emotions hidden, but this evening I without a doubt saw something wet sliding down her cheek. "Please, let's just hurry," I said shakily, now less determined to keep myself composed.

She reached out for the doorknob and turned, and without resistance, the door, apparently left unlocked, opened. In was clearly rusty and creaked, but as we stood at the threshold, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the darkness within, no one seemed to have heard it.

"Come on," Arra whispered. "Let's bring him inside."

"Arra..." I moaned quietly, but followed her through the doorway.

At first glance, the home appeared fairly normal, though it stunk heavily of cheap perfume and alcohol. We had entered into a small kitchen, which was adjacent to a living room. A bathroom door was open on our right, and a door on the other side of the house must have opened to a single bedroom. As I began to look more closely, I started to feel more uneasy. The kitchen tabletop was completely cluttered with a variety of items. A few bottles of beer, one of which was still half full, caught my eye, along with a packet of cigarettes. A mess of papers - unpaid bills and a number of late fee notices - were strewn across it, looking more like place mats and ash collectors than anything else. A pill bottle was tipped over and the little blue tablets were spread out in front of it.

I passed through the kitchen quickly, in spite of myself wanting to inspect more of the table's items. The living room was equally as messy, with heaps of clothes piled onto the one ratty sofa. A couple bags of chips and more cigarette boxes rested on the seats and arms.

"Let's just put him in his bed and get out of here," I whispered as Arra came up beside me, Bear still cradled in her arms. "I don't want to look around anymore."

"I guess they share a room," she said, nodding at the doorway, and I shrugged on shoulder.

She walked toward the bedroom door, stepping lightly and making no sound, even though the floor was creaky and old. I followed behind her, wanting the image of Bear safe and sound, asleep in his bed, to be the last one in my mind from this night, possibly with a loving-looking mother asleep in a nearby bed.

I quickly realized that wasn't the image I would be left with as I came up next to Arra, who had stopped in the doorway.

The bedroom was just as bad as the rest of the house in terms of clutter, and it was only downhill from there. There were piles of dirty clothes on the ground, more bottles of beer on the surface of the small bedside table. There was no small bed that would indicate somewhere for Bear to sleep - the only bed was in the center of the room, and on it, with a blanket half-sprawled over them, lay a man and a woman. There was no doubt that the woman was Bear's mother - her coloring and face shape were almost identical to him. She was as thin as Bear, but instead of his smooth, clear skin, hers showed evidence of years of bad habits. Her left arm dangled off the edge of the mattress, and even in the dark, my superhuman eyes could see the track marks on her forearm.

The man snoring beside her was old - far too old to be a boyfriend. He had the same weathered face as Bear's mother, and rotten teeth that put Frank to shame. A stack of paper notes thrown on the bedside table with a torn-open, empty box of condoms on top explained his presence.

Arra and I still hadn't moved from the doorway, and it had just become blatantly clear that we would go no further into the room. We met each other's gaze, then without a word gave each other the most bittersweet of smiles. She adjusted her hold around Bear, kissed the top of his head, and with the mutual, unspoken understanding that we were doing the right thing, headed back to the front door.

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**A/N: **Between posting this chapter and the last chapter, I received...wait for it...ELEVEN reviews! Not all on this chapter, and not all from different people, but still, how incredible is that? And I have to say, the reactions to Frank's death were everything I'd hoped for and more XD So, ferretgirls, SUSHIxMONSTER, BlueBookworm512, Ozuma thy Awesome, Miss Feminist, Rowan Rawr, anonymous reviewer, and Kiddo - long live the reviewing awesomeness that is all of you! I've got plans for another surprise-bribe - ahem, I mean of course 'bargaining piece' ;) It's not ready yet, but if you guys can keep at it, I'll hurry to get it done! Also, if anyone had ideas for something they'd specifically like me to offer as a surprise, I might give them a go (no promises though, since sometimes things just prove impossible for me to write).

Thanks for reading! Here's hoping you'll all have something to say about this chapter :)


	18. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1

* * *

We had some explaining to do when we returned to our hideout. Three stunned faces greeted me, Arra, and the still-sleeping Bear as we stepped through and quickly shut the door. Frank's body had been moved to a corner of the cellar and covered with an old cape of Mr. Crepsley's, which meant to me that Harkat had filled them in on all that had happened while they were hunting. Of course, that only lead to more confusion when we returned with Bear.

Despite the stream of questions spewed at us from the moment we entered, nothing changed the fact that Arra felt we were in a hurry to get away from this city and whoever knew our whereabouts. She refused to answer and ignored all questions asked about Bear and focused only on leaving. All she would say on the matter was a very flat, non-negotiable, "We're not leaving him." I only spoke to promise them that we'd explain everything as soon as we were safe.

"It's daylight now," Arra said urgently, adjusting her hold on Bear and crouching to scoop up her bag of belongings. She slung it over her shoulder and gestured at the tiny window at the top of the far wall, where a trickle of morning sunlight shone in at us. "We won't get far unless we hurry." She paused, then said, "It might be time to risk flitting."

Immediately, Vancha nodded. "Aye," he said gruffly. "We should get as far away from here as possible. There is no point in sitting here like oblivious, innocent ducks."

"Are you sure that you wish to flit?" Mr. Crepsley asked Arra slowly. "There is no way for whomever is after us to know that Frank revealed all he did to you. They are not going to rush into this if they have been stalking us patiently since they first spoke with him. They want to be sure that whatever their plan may be, it will be executed perfectly. If we make a hasty decision, it could leave room for an error that could prove detrimental."

"This isn't a hasty decision," Arra said. "There will be no errors that could lead to any type of confrontation or capture if we flit - they would have no way of knowing where we've gone."

"But you admit that there is hardly nothing to lose in flitting," he said quietly.

"I do," she sighed. "But I think there is far more risk to us all if we don't get out of here as fast as possible."

"All right," he said hesitantly. "If you are certain. Perhaps if I take Darren and Bear, and Vancha..."

"I can hold Bear," she said, and she tightened her hold around his waist as if expecting Mr. Crepsley to try and forcibly take him. "If we begin to flit and I have second thoughts, I'll slow down. But we've wasted enough time as it is here; there's been enough talking, we just need to go."

Without another word of protest, Mr. Crepsley nodded and motioned for me to climb onto his back. I scooped up my belongings, as well as my mentor's, and hurried to clamber up onto his back. Within a minute, we were out of the basement, on the streets, waiting for a couple stray humans to walk out of our sight. Then we began at a run. In seconds, the city was flying past us and the world had become a blur.

It had been a long time since we'd flitted, but the feeling of buzzing so quickly across the land came back to me like a welcome old friend. As long as my grip around Mr. Crepsley was firm, I could otherwise relax, even allow my eyes to shut. It was different, flitting during the day. Usually there were only streaks of light in what was otherwise darkness, but now, in the daylight, there were many splotches of color as we so fluidly moved past the world, almost like a canvas covered by endless different colors.

Flitting during the day also meant the vampires lost steam much more quickly. I could feel the sweat on Mr. Crepsley's back dampening his cloak already, barely five minutes in, and I could see the back of his neck beginning to redden. He wouldn't last more than another ten minutes before he was forced to stop, and then he'd be pressed to find immediate shelter and face extreme heat exhaustion from being in the sun, though it was still a mild morning sun to me.

As I suspected, I could feel our speed dropping several minutes later, and soon the blurring had ceased and we were traveling at an almost-human speed again. Finally, when he had slowed enough, I slid off of his back and fell into step beside him as we hurried to meet up with Vancha and Harkat, who had stopped several hundred feet in front of us. We had made it out of the city - far out, by the looks of it; we had stopped in a field surrounded by forest. Though the sun was harsh on us here, the trees would offer plenty of shade for a rest.

"Arra?" Mr. Crepsley called breathlessly, running a hand over the dripping back of his neck. He turned to Vancha. "Did you see her at all while we were flitting?"

"Every now and then I caught her out of the corner of my eye," the Prince panted. "Think she fared just fine. I'm sure she's around here..."

And he was right. No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than Arra emerged from the wooded area behind us, Bear in one arm, her belongings in the other. The small knot of worry that had formed in my stomach eased as she half-smiled. As she approached us, Mr. Crepsley took several anxious steps towards her. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she told him. "As fine as any of us could be in these conditions, that is. Hurry and let's get into the shade."

She and the other two vampires were extremely flushed, and as Vancha turned to make his way to the trees in front of us, I saw an exposed spot on his back that was peeling and nastily discolored. Harkat and I lagged behind for a minute to take a quick look around the area to make sure there were no humans or the like nearby that would cause us any problems. When we deemed the area clear, we joined the vampires and Bear in the woods. Amazingly, the boy was still sleeping, apparently so worn out from his crying earlier that even flitting had not awoken him. Arra had laid him down on a cape and he was mumbling quietly in his sleep, balling the fabric up in his small fists.

"Think we're safe here?" Vancha asked as Harkat and I sat down, our backs resting against a fallen tree.

"Yes," Harkat nodded.

"Safe for now," Arra corrected. "Additional distance will make us safer."

"Will you be willing to flit more in the future?" Vancha asked hopefully, picking up a stick and using it to scratch at the extremely sunburned patch of his back.

Arra thought for a second before answering. "I think I'd rather not. That short distance was manageable, and I could flit for much longer if it was necessary, and if it was not day, but I do feel a bit tired, and nauseous. It might partially be the fact that it's been a while since we've flitted, but for the sake of caution, best not to."

"Understandable," Mr. Crepsley said before anyone else could answer. "But you feel all right?"

"Fine," she smiled at him reassuringly. "Just queasy and tired."

"Here." Mr. Crepsley reached into his cape and pulled out several phials of blood. "I had almost forgotten, in the craze of this morning, that Vancha and I were successful in our hunting. We were able to visit a hotel and collect from several different humans, and all of our phials are now full. Perhaps this will make us all feel better. It has been a very long night."

He handed one to her, then reached out to pass one to me. I gratefully took it and drank more than I normally would have in one swig. I took one more, smaller, as I immediately felt my thirst beginning to ease, then wiped my mouth before corking it again and giving it back to him.

"I'm sure that everyone is anxious for rest," Vancha said as Mr. Crepsley began to re-stow his phials, "but I do think a very brief rundown of what went on tonight would be good, seeing as Larten, Harkat and I are obviously still wondering why he's still here." He pointed to Bear.

Arra and I began to recount the events of the evening, only skimming over the time with Frank, as Harkat had already mostly filled them in, and trying our best to justify our decision to keep Bear, rather than leave him with his mother. I could hear Vancha give a couple half-heartedly-disguised sniffs as we presented our reasons, and I thought even Mr. Crepsley looked as though he was holding his tongue a couple of times. When we'd finished, no one spoke immediately. The ever-tactful Harkat was the first to speak.

"I understand why you didn't...want to leave him there," he said. "But I do wonder what...it is you plan to do with him now?"

When Arra didn't answer, I responded with the only honest one there was. "We didn't quite get to that part," I admitted. "But for now, he's with us. I don't think we have to decide what to do right away."

"And so we're back where we started," Vancha said gruffly. "Minus the drunk, who, I must say, pulled off the role of more of a pain-in-the-ass than a five year old brilliantly, so that's a plus. But did anyone think through what we're telling the kid when he wakes up? Because, 'I killed your father because he knew we were vampires, sorry' may not go over so well."

"He won't understand everything, or even most of it," Arra said, sighing and placing a hand on her stomach - apparently she still felt nauseous. "I think a simple explanation will do. He was so upset before he fell asleep, thinking that we would leave without him, that I think he'll be overjoyed to know we took him along. Explaining why Frank's gone for good won't be as hard as we think. Bear is only five; he might ask questions, but I don't think he's much concerned with reading into the answers."

"Be that as it may," Mr. Crepsley said, his tone gentle. "The fact still remains that Bear cannot remain with us for long. We cannot forget that, while we are headed on this very prolonged journey to the Cirque du Freak, we have a larger goal to accomplish. And Bear does not fit in with that."

"Then we will cross that bridge when we get to it," Arra said stubbornly. She looked as though she wanted to continue, but she was interrupted by Harkat.

"Oh!" the Little Person said suddenly as if he'd remembered something. He unbuckled a side pocket of his bag, and immediately, a furry brown nose peaked out, followed by the rest of Milo the mouse.

I couldn't help but chuckled as the small animal scurried automatically to where Bear slept. "I hoped that his pet...would soften any blow he will... receive from losing his father," Harkat explained. "It would harder for him to...lose his dad and his mouse...in one night."

We smiled at the Little Person's thoughtfulness. "Good thinking," I told him, grinning. "Milo will make him much happier."

"It was a very good idea," Arra agreed, but soon her smile had slipped and she was worriedly running her hand through her hair again. "Tomorrow night, we continue to the Cirque du Freak. Larten, you will be able to get us there?"

"Of course," he nodded. "They must be nearby here."

"Right," she said. "And hopefully, once we're there, Destiny will make itself clear and we'll know what to do next. A five-year-old boy should be the least of our concerns. For now, let me handle Bear."

And that was all we could do.

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**A/N: **First and foremost, thanks to: **SUSHIxMONSTER** (you poor dear girl XD)**, BlueBookworm512, ferretgirlsz, Milaya, Ozuma thy Awesome, Rowan Rawr, anonymous reviewer, I leaving no name, **and **anonymous reviewer **(again! - glad you still liked it after the stress of exams :)). You guys know how amazing and awesome you are, and if there hadn't been such fantastic reviews, I might not have pushed so hard to get this chapter done today (I know it wasn't a fast update, but hey, an update is an update :)). I have an intensive English course running through June that starts tomorrow, so I don't think I'll have much time for writing till July. So I'm glad I got this in for you all! :D

And, that all having been said and out of the way, thanks for reading! It was a pretty transitional and boring and short chapter, but...yeah :P I still love reviews ^_^ And if I can, I think I'm going to try and get a surprise chapter ready :) Might be a while till it's done, but reviews might help ;)

Finally, I recommend everyone goes and checks out the _Saga of Larten Crepsley _fandom! Currently, there are only two stories, one brand new one by my darling friend Rowan Rawr (both her story and the other are Arra/Larten!)! Check 'em out and show the two authors over there some love - I think we should make that fandom more popular!


	19. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: See chapter one**

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At first, my eyes remained tightly shut, and I swatted at the annoying tapping on my shoulder. I didn't want to wake up; not yet, not after last night. I felt like I deserved a good week of uninterrupted sleep.

"Darren?" a scared, familiar little voice said softly.

I was up.

Bear stopped tapping on my shoulder as soon as he saw my eyes open. I was used to being greeted by a chipper Bear when I awoke, with an ear-to-ear grin plastered across his face, so full of energy that his little ears almost wiggled. But now, Bear wasn't smiling.

"Where are we?" he asked me, his eyes wide and troubled as he looked around at the trees.

I sighed and sat up, glancing around at my still-sleeping companions. Arra's cape was spread out on the ground beside Mr. Crepsley, and it was flattened as though it had recently been slept on, but Arra was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Arra?" I asked Bear, unintentionally ignoring his question while I stood to get a better view of the woods with hopes of finding Arra.

"I dunno," he said, getting up and clutching the hem of my shirt unconsciously in his little hand. Then he repeated, "Where are we?"

"In the woods," I answered him distractedly; I had no intentions of being the one to explain the whole crazy day before to the little boy.

Still clutching onto my shirt as I carefully stepped around the sleeping Vancha, Bear asked, "Where's Daddy?"

Not explaining things was going to be harder than I thought. Images of Frank with the knife, Arra snapping Frank's neck, and Frank's dead body collapsing to the ground sped through my mind, and I hurriedly looked away from Bear, as though fearful he could see my thoughts. "He's not here right now," I answered hesitantly. "Let's go find Arra, okay, Bear?"

"Mmkay," he agreed.

I heard a crack of a twig somewhere behind us and spun around, almost knocking Bear, who was still holding onto my shirt, to the ground. My eyes darted over the spaces between the trees and the cracks in the branches of dense, low-lying brush. Finally, I scanned the ground and saw a squirrel standing on a rock nearby, up on its hind legs, cleaning its face with its front feet. I gave a breath of relief - for a split second, I'd thought of vampaneze and wondered if any were on our tail on Frank's tip, as Arra suspected.

"Hey, Bear?" I said. "Why don't you wait here, and I'll go find Arra."

Before Bear could answer, my request became unnecessary as Arra's voice called from behind me, "I'm right here."

I turned and gave her a brief smile of acknowledgement as she pushed aside a few branches to join us in our makeshift camp.

"I was still feeling queasy, so I went for a walk," she explained to my questioning expression.

"Arra," Bear said, finally releasing my shirt and hurrying towards her, "where's Daddy?"

Arra didn't show much of a reaction to his question; she obviously had been expecting it. Instead, she sat on her cape and motioned for Bear to sit next to her. Vancha, Harkat, and Mr. Crepsley had begun to stir by now, and their eyes were on Bear and Arra. They, like I, wanted in spite of themselves to hear the conversation about to take place.

"Bear," she started with a heavy sigh, "do you remember yesterday, when we told you you were going to stay with your mom? When we said you weren't coming with us anymore?"

Bear nodded, his face still downtrodden and somber. Mr. Crepsley got to his feet and began to wander away from Bear and Arra. He sat on a fallen log to began starting a fire. When he caught me watching him, he gave me serious look and shook his head slightly; he didn't seem optimistic about the way Arra's explanation would be received.

Arra continued, her voice strained. "You wanted to come with us, remember?" she said. "And you were upset that you had to stay?"

Bear nodded again and said, "I don't want to stay now, either. I want to come with you, and..."

"You are coming with us," Arra said, a rare smile spreading on her face. "We decided to take you with us, Bear. That's why we're here. After you fell asleep we decided to keep going. We ended up here when we decided to take a break."

Bear was smiling now, his eyes lit up, and he exuded his usual excitement and happiness. He threw his arms around Arra's shoulders and let out a couple gleeful giggles. This almost seemed too good to be true.

Of course, it was. Explaining that he got to come with us was the easy part.

"Where's Daddy?" Bear asked as he pulled away from Arra. "Didn't he come, too?"

Arra paused, her face falling. We couldn't have expected Bear to be oblivious to the disappearance of his father, but the prospect of having to explain Frank's absence was unnerving. "He didn't come with us, no," she answered slowly.

"Why?" Bear asked, and his face had fallen again.

Arra nervously scraped her fingernails together. "He didn't want to. I don't think he liked us very much," she said weakly, her gaze averted from the little boy. "He wanted us to go without him, I think."

"But why didn't he want to come with me?" Bear asked. "Why didn't he say goodbye?"

Arra shifted in her seat. "Maybe you'll understand better when you're older," she said softly.

"Why?" Bear said, his chin beginning to to quiver. And before Arra could come up with anything else, he began to cry again, bawling his eyes out for the second time in the past few hours.

I turned away, not wanting to be dragged into the conversation or forced to explain anything to Bear. Arra put her arms around him and pulled him into a hug, whispering for him to stop crying, telling him it would be all right. It didn't seem right. I felt like he deserved the truth; we all _wanted_ him to know the truth, but he couldn't. And that left us with...what? We couldn't ignore the question forever. Eventually, we would have to tell him a lie. He was too young to understand. Even if he was older, even if he spent years with us, even if he understood us and accepted us for being vampires, he would never fully understand why Arra had killed his father.

I sat beside Mr. Crepsley. "What are we going to do with him?" I asked quietly, my voice low enough that even Arra could not hear. "He can't stay with us forever."

"You are repeating what we have all been wondering since you and Arra returned with him," he sighed, not impatiently.

"I know," I told him, "But if it was up to you, what would you do?"

He stroked the scar along his cheek. "I would have left him with one of his parents, where he belongs. But then, it is never easy to leave a child when you have his or her best interests in heart." He stared so thoughtfully out into the trees that I almost asked why. "Though," he continued before I said anything, "to remove Bear from the human world, from his family...it seems unnatural. Against destiny, you could say."

"But we were following our hearts," I offered.

"Aye," he nodded. "And for that, I cannot fault you. Though, several years down the line, as we continue to pursue the Lord of the Vampaneze with Bear still in tow, we will see what our hearts are telling us."

Vancha, who had come to stand beside us, cleared his throat. "How far are we from the Cirque du Freak?" he asked, deftly ignoring Bear as he so often tried to do.

"Less then one hundred miles now," Mr. Crepsley said. "We will be there in a few days, provided they do not move anywhere substantially farther away in the meantime. I predict they will stay put for at least another week, so it is a matter of short time before we reach the Cirque. Then, perhaps, Hibernius can help us make sense of this all."

"Sense?" Vancha snorted. "Who needs to make sense of anything? Hardly anything we've done so far has gone as planned. I say we keep doing what we're doing, go here and there, see what we come across. Not much else we can do. I say we use our visit to the Cirque as time to relax, enjoy ourselves a little, if you know what I mean, because, why the hell not?" A grin spread across Vancha's face and he rubbed his palms together. Mr. Crepsley snorted at him.

"What?" I asked, looking from one to the other.

"Vancha has an old friend at the Cirque," Mr. Crepsley explained, and despite my following questions refused to say any more on the matter.

After a few minutes, it seemed that Bear had stopped crying. He sat cross-legged on Arra's cape, listening and slowly nodding his head as she spoke softly to him. Harkat had joined the two of them, and as I watched, he reached into one of the pockets in his robes and pulled out, who else, Milo. Bear's tear-stained face looked at the little mouse for a second before lighting up into his usual smile. He reached his hands out and Harkat placed Milo in his hands. Apparently feeling like Bear was finally calmed down, Arra stood and came towards us.

"What did you tell him?" Mr. Crepsley asked as she sat beside him.

"Not the truth," she sighed. "But I tried not to lie. He's too young to understand, but that doesn't mean he deserves lies. I told him Frank couldn't come with us, that he didn't want to. I tried to explain that it had nothing to do with him."

"Eventually, he's going to get older and demand the truth; avoiding the question isn't going to be good enough forever, or even for long," Vancha said critically.

"And we can deal with that if we get to it," Arra said stubbornly.

"'If'?" Vancha said. "It's not 'if'. It's 'when' since you two decided to keep him like he's kept that little rodent."

"We didn't decide to take him with us just because we wanted to," I said calmly before Arra could snap back at Vancha. "We had to; we couldn't leave him. We really couldn't."

Vancha put his hands out and shrugged. "I shouldn't give a damn," he said. "It doesn't make much of a difference to me as long as he's your problem and not mine. I'm not saying I don't care about the kid, but I don't think you should have taken him."

"You've made that clear enough," Arra said coldly.

"Yes, we have all been over this plenty," Mr. Crepsley said with a tone that tried to diffuse the building tension. He ran a hand over his crop of orange hair distressedly. "The point is, Bear is here, and we are moving on. There is no going back, so we might as well put the debate to rest."

"Fine by me," Vancha said, leaning back and stretching. "I personally am looking forward to getting to the Cirque du Freak, if you know what I mean, and until we get there, everything else can go to hell as far as I'm concerned."

"Oh yes," Arra said, and I could tell she almost smiled. "I forgot how much you'd be looking forward to getting to the Cirque."

I breathed a sigh of relief as Vancha grinned at her and all three vampires chuckled. Feeling excluded but entirely better knowing that Vancha and Arra were not going to hold grudges against one another for the umpteenth time on our journey, I strode over to sit beside Harkat and Bear.

"...and if you hold him by his tail and drop him, he does a flip!" Bear was explaining to Harkat, as Milo fell head over heels through the air into Harkat's waiting grey hand.

"Okay, Bear," I said, interrupting before he could demonstrate Milo's next trick. "We're leaving soon. Why don't you give Milo a rest and put him back into your pocket, okay?"

"Okay," he said, taking the mouse back and sticking him in his pocket. Bear looked up at me and tilted his head. "Where are we going?" he asked. The kid had to hold a world record for asking questions, but this one, I could answer.

I smiled as I stood and gave him a tug back to his feet. "We're going to the circus."

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**A/N: **Um. Hi. Remember me?

I can honestly say there is no excuse for the standstill on this, and I apologize to everyone who's waited for this update. Really, thank you so much if you're reading now, after all this time. I'm not even going to try bargaining for reviews, because that just seems wrong.

I know I've said this before, but I really am going to try to get this going again. This was a tough chapter for me to write, but I think now that this hurdle has been crossed, everything might be easier for me. It was a pretty rough chapter, definitely not my best, and I really struggled with it, but now that I'm back in the swing of writing, the next chapters should be better. With school in session now, hopefully writing will become my homework escape again :) Here's hoping I'll be writing more for all of you soon! Thanks for reading :)

P.S. Who's excited for 'Palace of the Damned'?


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